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ToF v2 outdoor noise

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  • James StrawsonJ Offline
    James StrawsonJ Offline
    James Strawson
    ModalAI Team
    wrote on last edited by
    #5

    That's a typo on the website we've just corrected. The Starling 2 Max does not include a TOF sensor, and this sensor is not intended for outdoor use.

    I spent some time tuning the TOF point cloud processing filter params on Friday to reduce noise. These changes are in the dev branch now: https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/services/voxl-camera-server/-/commit/919c24bef21cbea2eb7be33853884f5f606a0763

    These these changes are likely to help in the outdoor use case too so I suggest giving it a go.

    M 1 Reply Last reply
    1
    • James StrawsonJ James Strawson

      That's a typo on the website we've just corrected. The Starling 2 Max does not include a TOF sensor, and this sensor is not intended for outdoor use.

      I spent some time tuning the TOF point cloud processing filter params on Friday to reduce noise. These changes are in the dev branch now: https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/services/voxl-camera-server/-/commit/919c24bef21cbea2eb7be33853884f5f606a0763

      These these changes are likely to help in the outdoor use case too so I suggest giving it a go.

      M Offline
      M Offline
      MattK
      Contributor
      wrote on last edited by
      #6

      @James-Strawson Hmmm, unfortunate typo. Does the Starling Max 2 use its dual IMX412 color image sensors to get depth-from-stereo, in order to do outdoor VOA? I wasn't too impressed with the quality of outdoor DFS that I got from the M0015, but perhaps the IMX412s are better?

      Appreciate the extra help/guidance on TOF processing, I'll try take a look. Even though the outdoor use case is not ideal, I'm still leaning towards trying to make the TOF sensors work for us, as the results I'm getting still seem more promising than what I was getting from stereo.

      Alex KushleyevA 1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • M MattK

        @James-Strawson Hmmm, unfortunate typo. Does the Starling Max 2 use its dual IMX412 color image sensors to get depth-from-stereo, in order to do outdoor VOA? I wasn't too impressed with the quality of outdoor DFS that I got from the M0015, but perhaps the IMX412s are better?

        Appreciate the extra help/guidance on TOF processing, I'll try take a look. Even though the outdoor use case is not ideal, I'm still leaning towards trying to make the TOF sensors work for us, as the results I'm getting still seem more promising than what I was getting from stereo.

        Alex KushleyevA Offline
        Alex KushleyevA Offline
        Alex Kushleyev
        ModalAI Team
        wrote on last edited by
        #7

        @MattK ,

        James is out of office, so i will respond. The dual IMX412 will not be used for DFS, in fact the cameras will be pointed in different directions (one forward, one down).

        Also, IMX412 are rolling shutter cameras, which would make it difficult to get accurate DFS while in motion.

        M 1 Reply Last reply
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        • Alex KushleyevA Alex Kushleyev

          @MattK ,

          James is out of office, so i will respond. The dual IMX412 will not be used for DFS, in fact the cameras will be pointed in different directions (one forward, one down).

          Also, IMX412 are rolling shutter cameras, which would make it difficult to get accurate DFS while in motion.

          M Offline
          M Offline
          MattK
          Contributor
          wrote on last edited by
          #8

          Thanks, @Alex-Kushleyev .

          If that's the case, then what kind of VOA solution is present on the Starling 2 Max?

          ModeratorM 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • M MattK

            Thanks, @Alex-Kushleyev .

            If that's the case, then what kind of VOA solution is present on the Starling 2 Max?

            ModeratorM Offline
            ModeratorM Offline
            Moderator
            ModalAI Team
            wrote on last edited by Moderator
            #9

            @MattK There is currently no VOA capability on Starling 2 Max

            M 1 Reply Last reply
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            • ModeratorM Moderator

              @MattK There is currently no VOA capability on Starling 2 Max

              M Offline
              M Offline
              MattK
              Contributor
              wrote on last edited by MattK
              #10

              @Moderator Oh... interesting. You might want to remove this bullet point from its sales page then. https://www.modalai.com/products/starling-2-max?variant=48172375310640

              9baa1fb3-7afe-4d1e-9644-9905ec7eefc7-image.png

              Would you be able to recommend a drone with a working VOA solution? We're interesting in getting one to get a baseline for the quality we can expect from VOXL2's built in VOA SDK. I'm particularly interested in assessing depth-from-stereo, I've gotten good enough results for now from the TOF v2 sensor. But TOF recommendations are welcome as well.

              ModeratorM Jetson NanoJ 2 Replies Last reply
              0
              • M MattK

                @Moderator Oh... interesting. You might want to remove this bullet point from its sales page then. https://www.modalai.com/products/starling-2-max?variant=48172375310640

                9baa1fb3-7afe-4d1e-9644-9905ec7eefc7-image.png

                Would you be able to recommend a drone with a working VOA solution? We're interesting in getting one to get a baseline for the quality we can expect from VOXL2's built in VOA SDK. I'm particularly interested in assessing depth-from-stereo, I've gotten good enough results for now from the TOF v2 sensor. But TOF recommendations are welcome as well.

                ModeratorM Offline
                ModeratorM Offline
                Moderator
                ModalAI Team
                wrote on last edited by
                #11

                @MattK said in ToF v2 outdoor noise:

                to remove this bullet point from its sales pag

                Thank you, fixed

                1 Reply Last reply
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                • M MattK

                  Hey there,

                  I've been testing out the new ToF v2 sensor and have been encountering a lot of noise when trying to use it outdoors in the sun.

                  Attaching some depth image screenshots of the noise that I'm referring to. In both images, you can see me standing on ground, with a bunch of staticky noise all over the place.

                  Screenshot from 2024-05-09 13-43-20.png
                  Screenshot from 2024-05-09 13-43-49.png

                  I'm not surprised that noise gets introduced when sunlight is added to the equation, but I also noticed that the new Starling Max v2, which is advertised as an outdoor drone, claims to rely on this same ToF sensor for obstacle avoidance:

                  Screenshot from 2024-05-09 13-57-35.png

                  The Starling Max v2 also has dual color image sensors, so I'm wondering if this was a misprint and it actually uses depth-from-stereo for outdoor obstacle avoidance. Either that, or maybe my ToF sensor is damaged?

                  I've started to work on implementing my own filtering to voxl-camera-server (looks promising so far, but still more work to do), but I wanted to sanity check myself in case something else is wrong.

                  dleeD Offline
                  dleeD Offline
                  dlee
                  Regular
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #12

                  @MattK Have you ever tested the EXTRA_LONG_RANGE mode of tof v2? I am also testing VOA outdoors using tof sensor. But it was not enough for me. I tested all of the modes in v2, Extra long-range mode has less noise than other modes. Even though extra long-range mode is better than others, VOA using tof v2 makes the drone stop 2m away from obstacles.

                  M 1 Reply Last reply
                  1
                  • dleeD dlee

                    @MattK Have you ever tested the EXTRA_LONG_RANGE mode of tof v2? I am also testing VOA outdoors using tof sensor. But it was not enough for me. I tested all of the modes in v2, Extra long-range mode has less noise than other modes. Even though extra long-range mode is better than others, VOA using tof v2 makes the drone stop 2m away from obstacles.

                    M Offline
                    M Offline
                    MattK
                    Contributor
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #13

                    @dlee Ah, no I have not. I'll give that a try when I get the chance. Thanks!

                    1 Reply Last reply
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                    • M MattK

                      @Moderator Oh... interesting. You might want to remove this bullet point from its sales page then. https://www.modalai.com/products/starling-2-max?variant=48172375310640

                      9baa1fb3-7afe-4d1e-9644-9905ec7eefc7-image.png

                      Would you be able to recommend a drone with a working VOA solution? We're interesting in getting one to get a baseline for the quality we can expect from VOXL2's built in VOA SDK. I'm particularly interested in assessing depth-from-stereo, I've gotten good enough results for now from the TOF v2 sensor. But TOF recommendations are welcome as well.

                      Jetson NanoJ Offline
                      Jetson NanoJ Offline
                      Jetson Nano
                      Veteran
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #14

                      @MattK @Moderator
                      If the Starling V2 Max doesn't support a DFS server due to IMX412 being rolling shutter cameras and no TOF, then how is the 3D map generated?
                      Since in my understanding, to generate a map you need depth values/ point cloud data.
                      If the depth estimates are being obtained by some other means then why can't the same point cloud be made available for VOA in vision-hub server?

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