Dashcam with rangefinder

[laknox]

Recently, I was watching a dashcam compilation video and one of the videos seemed to be from a commercial truck. The cool thing was that the camera, or the software, was able to range other vehicles in front of the camera, highlight them, and give a range in meters. It really didn't hit me until later, then I couldn't find the same video again. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Given that a lot of people post caveats on their videos about how close things are and the wide-angle lens distorts things, I figure that having a built-in rangefinder would be damn cool! TIA...

Lyle

 

[kamkar]

Some chipsets offer this, mostly high end stuff that can be incorporated into the whole system it take for a car to drive itself.
It is not something you will see in consumer dashcams at the moment, but maybe in a few years time.

But dont worry it is coming, already in drones like the Skydio 2 that use it to navigate obstacles on its own.
The skydio 2 have six 4K cameras to navigate with and 1 for your filming stuff, that's some serious compute power heeded to handle all that. ( Nvidia inside )

 

[laknox]

Some chipsets offer this, mostly high end stuff that can be incorporated into the whole system it take for a car to drive itself.
It is not something you will see in consumer dashcams at the moment, but maybe in a few years time.

But dont worry it is coming, already in drones like the Skydio 2 that use it to navigate obstacles on its own.
The skydio 2 have six 4K cameras to navigate with and 1 for your filming stuff, that's some serious compute power heeded to handle all that. ( Nvidia inside )

I'd still love to find that video and try and track down the original poster and ask them directly. Thanks for the info.

Lyle

 

[Nigel]

Wondering what dash cam or dash cam software this is.

Looking at the video, I see the usual date/time and speed, but there is also relative speed, distance, a graph, etc. It has me wondering if it's the dashcam itself, or software analyzing the footage. Any ideas?

dashcamtalk.com

 

[laknox]

Wondering what dash cam or dash cam software this is.

Looking at the video, I see the usual date/time and speed, but there is also relative speed, distance, a graph, etc. It has me wondering if it's the dashcam itself, or software analyzing the footage. Any ideas?

dashcamtalk.com

Hey! That's the exact video I was watching! You have the origins of where it came from?

Lyle

 

[kamkar]

What you have see might also be a APP.

 

[kamkar]

That video was posted in redit originally, i think most of what you see overlaid in it is done in software, and not something the camera actually do on its own.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/fgxojy

There is a lot of stuff going on company based but also hackers, in regard to vehicle autonomy and detection / plate detection ( ANPR ) and so on.

I would like ANPR so i could enter plates of all undercover cop cars and have my camera alert me if one is driving behind me / near me,,,,,,, not that i am a criminal anymore just situational awareness.

The thread say its captured with https://www.netradyne.com/

Dashcam player software are not yet that comprehensive, but it might get there too.

 

[Matt_V939]

That's I great, once you get software recognizing object and tracking getting the speed should be a piece of cake.
I guess police camera use(d) laser rangefinders ?

 

[laknox]

That video was posted in redit originally, i think most of what you see overlaid in it is done in software, and not something the camera actually do on its own.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/fgxojy

There is a lot of stuff going on company based but also hackers, in regard to vehicle autonomy and detection / plate detection ( ANPR ) and so on.

I would like ANPR so i could enter plates of all undercover cop cars and have my camera alert me if one is driving behind me / near me,,,,,,, not that i am a criminal anymore just situational awareness.

The thread say its captured with https://www.netradyne.com/

Dashcam player software are not yet that comprehensive, but it might get there too.

While software could be doing the overlay, it still needs data to =create= the overlay. I can see if there's an entire system that's connected to the ECU or OBD port, but you still have to have some way of detecting, and rangefinding other vehicles. RADAR? LIDAR?

Lyle

 

[Matt_V939]

you don't need rangefinder. I think only calculation with frame rate/object recognition (?)
This is a VERY simple implementation, not comparable to a moving car in a real world (the camera is not moving and you have a fixed space & environment).

Car Speed Detection with a Raspberry Pi and a PiCamera – luca’s trashbin

www.lucas-trashbin.ch

 

[Nigel]

While software could be doing the overlay, it still needs data to =create= the overlay. I can see if there's an entire system that's connected to the ECU or OBD port, but you still have to have some way of detecting, and rangefinding other vehicles. RADAR? LIDAR?

Lyle

It is from image analysis using AI, no need for RADAR/LIDAR unless it is safety critical.

 

[kamkar]

Yes you need a lot of data to work from.
Nvidias tensor flow are putting a lot of this together and spicing it up with AI

But i don't think they use radar in these fleet systems, if you know your own speed as a basis and have a stop watch i assume you can figure out a lot.
Also if road markings are made with some standard, say lines are 12 feet with a 4 feet gap in between, you can also use those to deduct distance in between or time in between.
The system could also use a frame grab, say when the car in front are at X in relation to something, the system could then compute when you get to that X location and so give you a time between the 2 vehicles.

Of course the smart self driving cars use a lot more sensors, but also have to work out a lot more, so they will deploy radar / lidar too.

Its like the guy in the russian sub ( red october ) saying give me a stopwatch and a map and i could fly thru mountains blindfolded, but i assume he would need a compass too, and knowing where he started.

 

[laknox]

OK, so you don't, necessarily, need sensors, but where's the accel/decel info coming from on the lower graph?

Lyle

 

[Nigel]

OK, so you don't, necessarily, need sensors, but where's the accel/decel info coming from on the lower graph?

Lyle

Could be GPS, but most cameras have a gyro sensor (g-sensor) to measure acceleration and to lock files in the event of an accident.

 

[kamkar]

Yes that's probably from the G sensor, and fleet systems might deploy even more sensitive ones, and maybe D-GPS or another higher accurate GPS system.
The EU Galileo GPS system will give regular users a pretty high accuracy, and for not public pretty much pin point accuracy ( literately )

Current dashcam i think have all the sensors they need to do something similar in dedicated dashcam players, the only problem is the wide range of hardware used in dashcams, which are creating problems even just for simple things like video / speed / location.
So for dashcams to go beyond the current level of players probably need a larger brand of cameras to do it to their own didicated software, general players like dashcam viewer will probably find this hard to do.

To do this you probably need more compute power than just playing a video with a dot going on a map like current dashcam players, so it will probably be a matter of your computer having to analyze the video segment, before you can play it with what ever the software have figured out added on top of it all.

 

[laknox]

Wow! A lot more involved than I thought, for sure! I just thought it was cool as hell to be able to know distances and speeds of other vehicles, in relation to you. Just beginning my education on cams. Got more questions, but I won't hijack my own thread to ask them.

Lyle

 

[kamkar]

We are here for you buddy.

In a pinch / court of law, you could call upon some expert, to determine more from video evidence.

in regard to speed you don't even need GPS, and the not calibrated GPS in dashcams the court would probably not accept, but the video is there, and via that you can deduct X distance covered in a given time ( that would probably be yards / second, but this can be converted to MPH just fine, and the court can not dispute that.
So the court will probably tell a cop to go measure how long is the distance from that light pole and to that sign that you passed just before the crash, and that distance + the time in the video it take to cover it will give your exact speed.
Unless of course courts are now dismissing scientific facts from Nobel prize winners.

I like to have my speed watermarked on my footage, but if there was some kind of wonder dashcam that gave me much better image quality as a trade off for not having GPS i would take that in a heartbeat.

 

[kamkar]

Dont fall too hard on your ass over dashcams with "smart" features, these often have some trade off, or are after all not that smart.
The main thing are:
1: good image quality.
2: good performance over time, IMO a dashcam should at least at last 4 years, and that's often not a problem even with less expensive cameras.
3: support of the Brand. This are often hit or miss, brand size and popularity don't necessary mean you get good service / support.
4: Get good brand memory card, and keep a eye on it every few months, on the computer it take about 10 minutes to look over a 128 GB memory card, and you need at least 64GB memory card size for each camera in a system.
And do take into account even the best brand memory cards can go belly up almost before you unwrap them ( my experience ) so do get those from a place where you can get a unproblematic RMA experience, myself i use local stores, or one of the EU Amazon stores ( sold / fulfilled by amazon )

Some dashcams do claim set and forget operation and format free, but i would not put that much trust in that, not least if the price are just 10 minutes of your time every few months.