
Simple Lane Detection - edward
http://sdc.autojazari.com/lane-detection/
======
dhruvp
Totally agree with the sentiments here that this is a first pass and not for
production use. In fact, that's exactly the intent of this project. It's meant
to be a very first pass for people to get a sense of what's possible with
simple off the shelf tools and a basic understanding of CV. We expect students
to do this within 7 days of starting the program!

There will be a far more advanced lane detection project further in the
Nanodegree that is intended to cover all the use cases that people have
pointed out here.

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ceterum_censeo
To what degree will the recent NHTSA self-driving guidelines be covered in
your program?

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mwfunk
Why do you think that should be part of the curriculum?

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falcolas
If you're writing code for a self driving mechanism, the guidelines become
part of the requirements for that code.

At a minimum, being aware of the guidelines would be a good thing to inform
discussions about self-driving technology.

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inimino
No, if you're writing a production self-driving system that becomes important.
Class time should be spent on fundamentals.

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revelation
This isn't lane detection, this is _line detection_. Don't mistake the best-
case scenario weather and freeway setting with that.

In any case, there is nowadays a pretty dramatic gorge between 1) discrete
transforms heaped upon each other like here (Mobileye style) and 2) just DNN.
I feel 1 is falling out of favor until we will eventually realize 2 alone
isn't the duck's guts either.

~~~
jeffreygoesto
+1! :-) Also, check this out:
[https://secure.surveymonkey.com/_resources/9362/13989362/c40...](https://secure.surveymonkey.com/_resources/9362/13989362/c4041e9f-1a62-4503-8041-fb9888b9cc4e.jpg)

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salik_syed
Interesting tidbit: The way we did this on the Stanford DARPA Urban Challenge
vehicle was to use the intensity of the returned LIDAR signal ... the little
reflective markers between white lane paint are actually covered using a
retro-reflective coating. You can get extremely good detection rates. It's
much more of a hack :)

~~~
cbhl
That's cool, but the little reflective markers don't get used in places that
get snow (like Canada) because of snow plows.

~~~
lttlrck
Recessed markers are becoming increasingly common

[https://www.azdot.gov/mobile/media/blog/posts/2013/01/25/tra...](https://www.azdot.gov/mobile/media/blog/posts/2013/01/25/transportation-
defined-recessed-pavement-markers)

Edit: anecdotally, in the NE US.

~~~
sanswork
The Toronto area had them everywhere last time I was there.

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infinitone
While this is great and serves as a good starter for those looking to get a
basic understanding of computer vision.

I'm not so sure if thats what real self-driving cars use. It seems too basic
to apply a Canny-Edge detector which is taught in 3rd/4th year comp vision
classes. I'm skeptical but also not very knowledgeable about the tech that
goes into self driving cars- so if anyone with real experience can inform
would be great.

I've written a survey paper about various edge detection algorithms and while
Canny is one of the better ones, it still leaves a lot to be desired.

~~~
mikeash
My layman's understanding is that it's mostly deep learning these days (what a
surprise, I'm sure). For example, this article says that deep learning is
behind most of Mobileye's computer vision stuff:

[http://www.computervisionblog.com/2015/03/mobileyes-quest-
to...](http://www.computervisionblog.com/2015/03/mobileyes-quest-to-put-deep-
learning.html)

(They're the ones who did Tesla's original Autopilot hardware, although not
the new stuff they just started shipping.)

~~~
photogrammetry
RIP MBLY. Greed got the best of them.

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verilog
I am starting this program in coming session, and having taken a computer
vision course, I am wondering how well did they cover Canny edge detection and
Hough Transform in just about a week. Did they go over all the math involved
or was the treatment superficial? When I learned about Hough Transform the
first time, it blew my mind! I am not very familiar with Deep Learning, so I
am a bit concerned, whether I this program is going to teach me Deep Learning
the way I want to learn, or will the treatment be a bit superficial?
Nonetheless, I'm very excited.

~~~
dsilver829
The Lane-Finding Project is a fun introduction to see how quickly students can
get something working.

There are longer and more in-depth modules on both Deep Learning and Computer
Vision later in the program.

~~~
verilog
Thanks, David!

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markovbling
Very cool but wouldn't say simple haha!

I implemented a Hough circle detector in JavaScript that might be of interest
- it's got UI to tweak the accumulator threshold and is all first principles
without any calls to black box functions:

[https://github.com/alexanderconway/Hough-Circle-
Detection](https://github.com/alexanderconway/Hough-Circle-Detection)

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DonaldFisk
How well does this work

    
    
        (a) in the presence of heavy traffic/clutter
        (b) at night
        (c) in heavy rain
        (d) on roads with frequent bends?

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photogrammetry
It doesn't.

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sverige
Snow is also a problem for several reasons. Also, roads where the painted
lines are so faded as to make a poor contrast with surrounding features.

I've also had a lane sensor that worked well during the day, but was confused
by the taillights of vehicles that passed me at night, apparently thinking
that was the new left boundary and so warning me I was out of the lane on the
right.

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TheGreatPotatoe
I have trouble with snow.

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er0l
a car of yours with lane detection or you personally?

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quocble
Good for educational purpose. But for practical purpose, this may have
unpredictable issues under different lighting conditions, debris, broken
markings, etc.

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imglorp
[http://comma.ai](http://comma.ai) also has some code and materials on their
site about CV for driving.

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amelius
I wonder how a deep learning solution (convnet) would compare, both in
development-time (training-time) and in accuracy.

~~~
photogrammetry
Several orders of magnitude harder.

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skanga
Are there any good videos of driving in varied conditions to test this out?

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hk__2
How fast does it work? Is the video “real-time” detection?

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DonaldFisk
I wouldn't be surprised if it is real-time. It uses OpenCV, which is heavily
optimized and therefore very fast. However, if you ever want to use your own
algorithms to do per-pixel processing, instead of relying on the OpenCV
library ones, you'd have to write them in C++ instead of Python.

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photogrammetry
>A collection of projects detailing how I learned to be a Self-Drive Car
Engineer.

Easy typo fix there. "Selft-Driving Car Engineer" makes him sound like an
adult, and not a toddler.

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boardwaalk
There's no need to be insulting, and you have a typo yourself.

~~~
photogrammetry
You got me.

