I do think this should help with some things, certainly. Seems this could much more quickly determine distance between some things than a 3d mapping of items would take.
I would be curious if there are numbers on this regard. But, I don't know any reason right off to dismiss it. It is not that uncommon for photographs to focus on the wrong item. This basically solves that problem, right?
Harsh: agreed; the way I worded that reflected my frustration and was unnecessarily harsh. That said, I am frustrated that what-seems-like-a-great-technology is being used so ineffectively. Lytro was chatting with a car company about using the sensors on their cars and, long time constants aside, that appears to have been for naught.
Photography: the camera on my phone has been good-enough for me for years, so I'm a poor judge of camera needs. But I just haven't heard any photo-nerd complain about the problems with focus on a camera, so I am not sure there is an actual problem here that Lytro is solving.
How do you envision this being better than other sensor technology? Seems that car sensors would be better off just adding additional sensors instead of this. No need to image process to determine distance from items, when you can do a distance sensor, right?
I do think this should help with some things, certainly. Seems this could much more quickly determine distance between some things than a 3d mapping of items would take.
I would be curious if there are numbers on this regard. But, I don't know any reason right off to dismiss it. It is not that uncommon for photographs to focus on the wrong item. This basically solves that problem, right?