On 10/23/06, Bob Mottram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
My inside sources tell me that there's little or no software development going on at Evolution Robotics, and that longstanding issues and bugs remain unfixed. They did licence their stuff to WoWee, and also Whitebox Robotics, so its likely we'll see more SIFT enabled robots in the not too distant future.
I hope so. I visited Evolution last year, and I remember that (what seemed to be) their chief product was a system for automatically identifying groceries hidden at the bottom of shopping carts. I guess that's useful from a business perspective, but it isn't particularly sexy. I'm also pretty surprise that they haven't done anything major with their vSLAM tech: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=1570091
I think their stuff was also licenced to Sony for use on their AIBO, before Sony axed their robotics products.
Sony licensed the tech, but I think they only used it so that AIBO could visually recognize pre-printed patterns on cards, which would signal the AIBO to dance, return to the charging station, etc. SIFT is IMHO overkill for that kind of thing, and it's a pity they didn't do anything more interesting with it.
Grinding my own axe, I also think that stereo vision systems will bring significant improvements to robotics over the next few years. Being able to build videogame-like 3D models of the environment in real time is now a feasible proposition which I think will happen before the decade is out. With a good model of the environment the robot can rehearse possible scenarios before actually running them, and find important features such as desk or table surfaces.
Perhaps. To play devil's advocate, how well do you think stereo vision system would actually work for creating a 3D structure of a home environment? It seems that distinctive features in the home tend to be few and far between. Of course, the regions between distinctive features tend to be planar surfaces, so perhaps it isn't too bad. -- Neil ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
