[Torkel]

So it's a fisheye lens?

If you plot pixels per degree over the field of view of a fisheye lens you will see that vastly more pixels are dedicated to the center "eye". And also the field of view is large. Which is what this novel lens claims to also do.

[michaelt]

It might be like that - but there are other options as well.

There are companies that make stereo lenses, capturing two images side-by-side on a single sensor, for people who want to take 3D photos on their interchangeable-lens cameras. And there are "anamorphic" lenses that squeeze things horizontally but not vertically - in digital terms, producing non-square pixels. Very popular in films in the 70s and 80s. And when it comes to corrective glasses, bifocal and varifocal/progressive lenses are another common type of lens providing variable optical properties.

Self-driving cars need to deal with both "stopped at a crosswalk, are there pedestrians?" (which needs a wide view) and "driving at 70mph, stopping distance about 300 feet, what's that thing 300 feet away?" (which needs a zoomed in view)

If you look at https://www.pexels.com/photo/city-street-in-fisheye-16209078... for example - it's wide (which is good) but the details at 300 feet ahead aren't winning any prizes. Far more pixels are wasted on useless sky than are used on the road ahead.

[dan-robertson]

Side by side seems unlikely in this as they claim both lenses have the same optical axis. But good to mention in the overview you give here.

[vouaobrasil]

No, a fisheye is still just a very wide lens with a single focal length. This lens claims to have two focal lengths.

[Onavo]

The fisheye transform is destructive though. Reversing it is a probabilistic process (not really a big problem now with generative ML but still)

[nuccy]

No it is not destructive, math-wise the transformation is bidirectional and can be used many times without any detail losses. The problem is sampling by the image sensor, some pixels endup with larger fiel-of-view than others, so reconstructed flat image of fractions of the fisheye would have different sharpness over the frame.

[hengheng]

I wouldn't want generative ML to infest my car's safety features tbh.

Fortunately you are wrong.