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Future of Computer Vision is Mantises Wearing Cool Little Shades

#1
Yazata Offline
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/...d-glasses/

There have been numerous attempts to give robots depth perceptions by using human-like stereoscopic two-eye vision. But that takes lots of processing power and it's slow. So researchers have been experimenting with Praying Mantises which also seem to possess depth perception but somehow do it very quickly with tiny little brains.

(Part of the experiments involved temporarily sticking stylish little shades to their heads with beeswax, making them look very cool.)

Photo here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/s...mwidth=400

"Published in the journal Current Biology, the study concluded that the praying mantis vision system is "very robust" and simpler than that used by humans, meaning it could provide a far better template for robots."

From the journal:

"This is a fundamentally different stereo mechanism from that found in primates... Insect steropsis has thus evolved to be computationally efficient while being robust to poor image resolution and to discrepancies in the pattern of lumanance between the two eyes."

It seems to work by comparing differences in motion as seen by the two eyes, not by comparing perspective or foreground/background differences in static features of a still image seen by both eyes. So apparently our mantises with their cool shades only have depth perception for moving objects (like insect prey).

"Before the discovery of insect stereopsis, David Lee hypothesized that organisms whose "visual system were attuned to pick up primarily the kinetic structure of the optic array" might be able to use kinetic, but not static, disparity. The praying mantis seems to be a good example of such an organism. Mantis stereopsis is computationally simple enough to implement in a brain of one million neurons, and---remarkably--- successfully detects stereoscopic distance in images where human steropsis fails. This demonistrates that distinct evolutionary pressures can result in completely different algorithms for binocular stereopsis.

Journal article here:

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/full...18)30014-9
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#2
C C Offline
(Feb 10, 2018 05:19 AM)Yazata Wrote: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/...d-glasses/

[...] (Part of the experiments involved temporarily sticking stylish little shades to their heads with beeswax, making them look very cool.)


Now that there's a way to simulate a "bad-boy" mantis (regardless of whether the selected shade wearer actually is one or not), perhaps we could find out if the female mantis prefers to mate with such. In addition, also if they are the males who get decapitated and eaten for nourishment, to produce a larger or healthier egg clutch. That choice and outcome would initially seem a done deal in the mantis population, given the physiological vitality factor traditionally projected upon bad-boys correspondingly in the people world.

But the latter for the pop-culture market of humans seems to have deteriorated over the last half-century into dandified narcissists whose clown / fool oriented speech and antics ironically get them revered by youth and young adults of recent decades. I.e., only an illusion of genetic fitness -- or, in the context of the mantis, a mere facade of having top nutritional value. A case might even be presented from some "Old Guard" corners of politics that this "Equus asinus" version of the bad-boy has even managed to acquire a foothold among the mature electorate, when it comes to what characteristics are appealing for a candidate / winner of the executive office.
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