There are dozens of white SUVs roaming the streets of Greater Toronto Area with an array of six FLIR thermal cameras mounted on its roof. There is a person sitting in the driver seat wearing a hi-vis vest, but the vehicle appears to be driven autonomously. There are fleet numbers printed in on the sides of the SUVs, but no indication of what company or institution is operating these vehicles. Nobody knows why 3D thermal scanners are being driven around by robot taxi.
>>533951712Why haven't you taken a picture of one?
>>533951989I'm afraid they're also shooting LIDAR. Your camera sensor can get ruined if you try to take a picture of active LIDAR.
>>533951712This one?
>>533952248Or this one? Also available in white. Or was it the more sedan-like Waymo crossover?
>>533952248>>533952299No, they're all Toyota Rav4.
>>533951712Probably looking for meth labs or grow houses
>>533952320
>>533951712Flock cameras are a way bigger issue
>>533952433The closest thing that I know of the cameras resemble is Arri Alexa Mini, but without any buttons and only says "FLIR." Each camera is fucking huge, at least 10 inch cube.
>>533952679Ah. Good info. Apparently AuToronto hosts an autonomous driving competition each year in Toronto, seems likely to be related to that. It’s an excellent opportunity to get pictures of prototype testbed platforms from multiple companies, and the risk to your CCD is minimal, due to the distance and intensity/focus involved.
>>533952679Why would they have $100,000 cameras mounted in these?
>>533952794If that's what they're doing, they should not be allowed to drive around in vehicles with no markings other than a few numbers.
>>533952679FLIR is a thermal optics company
I would want to follow it around just to see if the driver shat bricks but then just claim we were going to the same place and ask how much the LIDAR rig costs because I am interested in them for another purpose that isn’t used yet which is totally legal and I want to sell it to a bigger company
>>533952037>Your camera sensor can get ruined if you try to take a picture of active LIDAR.Inverse square law dummy. You can damage your camera if it's active and you're filming it from 6 inches away but at any reasonable distance in traffic there's basically no risk at all.
>>533953083Thermal cameras that huge would mean they're ultra high resolution or ultra high refresh rate or both. Must be extremely expensive to have six of them on a vehicle.
>>533953245I think it depends on the strength of the LIDAR emitter this is tech used already in many places and yes, it’s possible it could fuck up your security cameras if it’s too much but I doubt their application requires that amount of laser juice
>>533953274I doubt they are super expensive now since the technology has existed for a while It’s probably in this case trying to create 3D maps of everything and that doesn’t require some ultra high tech version of itIt’s probably for self driving vehicles or utility companies to get existing and updating maps of shit so when it breaks they know quickly For it to be some effective spying thing they would constantly need to be taking in data samples and would affix them to locations instead
