Great Dashcam?

[SawMaster]

Yes, but I expect that it will stay a concept since it would be of little use for most cameras due to things falling into a parallax hole between the lenses when they get too close! Probably OK with a dashcam because nothing should get closer than the front of the car, although with a short bonnet if you got really close to the car in front then the problem could show up with letters disappearing from the number plate of the car in front which wouldn't be too good on a dashcam meant to record number plates!

True, but since we're going to have images from before them getting that close, it doesn't seem like it would be a huge problem. I do like the idea a lot- it makes great sense and could be done with today's hardware. If there was any real issue with it, I think it would be that would require precision manufacturing with the CMOS mounting, the lens alignment, and the focusing. I'm not sure any current dashcam factory can do that level of work consistently; they're not used to building Nikon's or Canon's. But perhaps the blending software could compensate for alignment leaving only focus to be dealt with. Of course it would cost more, but if the rest of such a cam was built just as well, I'd find a way to buy one.

Phil

 

[Nigel]

the first brand which will use it. Instead to pay on advertising invest in a product which will advertise itself and will

the bigger challenge right now would be the software, the images need to be stitched together and playback may also present some challenges

The software already exists in the multi lens 360 cameras, something for the SoC makers to included, just needs some adjustment to give a flat view instead of a spherical view.

If the video is provided as half height 4K H264/5 then I don't see why it is any more a problem to play than any other 4K video, in fact being half the height it only requires half the decoding power so more computers will be able to handle it. None of my video players seems to have any issue with half height video. YouTube insists on turning it into full height with black top and bottom though.

True, but since we're going to have images from before them getting that close, it doesn't seem like it would be a huge problem. I do like the idea a lot- it makes great sense and could be done with today's hardware. If there was any real issue with it, I think it would be that would require precision manufacturing with the CMOS mounting, the lens alignment, and the focusing. I'm not sure any current dashcam factory can do that level of work consistently; they're not used to building Nikon's or Canon's. But perhaps the blending software could compensate for alignment leaving only focus to be dealt with. Of course it would cost more, but if the rest of such a cam was built just as well, I'd find a way to buy one.

Phil

You will never get alignment correct to the pixel level, especially since they can't go on the same PCB because they need to be angled left/right. It would need a calibration process, but I think that should be a simple one, just need to adjust the alignment left|right/up|down. Hopefully don't need to bother with rotation, that would impact image sharpness.