New research shows Apple is not only working to add LiDAR to “Apple Car” and its augmented reality efforts, but also how to make devices utilize the image data faster using compressed lidar data.
From an article in Apple Insider by William Gallagher.
It has felt as if LiDAR is the technology waiting for an application. So even though there is much you can do with it already, it has always felt as if Apple has big plans for the future.
That expectation appears to be borne out by a trio of newly-revealed patent applications. Starting with “Geometry Encoding of Duplicate Points,” the three are really all concerned with compressing and transmitting extensive LiDAR data in the fastest, most efficient way.
This first one looks to analyze the image data that LiDAR captures, then look for ways that it can reduce the data without losing important information.
It’s very much like JPEG, where for instance, a blue sky is captured as several thousand blue dots. The JPEG processing effectively writes that down as one blue dot with a note that you need a thousand more after it.
“An encoder is configured to compress spatial information for points included in a three-dimensional (3D) volumetric content representation using an octree, predictive tree, or other geometric compression technique,” says Apple of this LiDAR compression.
“For points of the 3D volumetric content that are spatially located as same or similar locations in 3D space, such duplicated points, may be signaled using a duplicate point count,” it continues. “The duplicate point count may be used instead of explicitly signaling (duplicated) spatial information in the predictive tree for the duplicated points, as an example.”
Part of this patent application regards how this compression could be calculated. Then part of it is about how a system could interpret the compression and produce a fuller result.
For the complete article on compressed lidar data CLICK HERE.
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