Chapter 3. Utilizing Computer Vision
When Snapchat first introduced a filter featuring a breakdancing hotdog, the stock price of the company surged. However, investors were less interested in the hotdog's handstand; what actually fascinated them was that Snapchat had successfully built a powerful form of computer vision technology.
The Snapchat app was now not only able to take pictures, but it was also able to find the surfaces within those pictures that a hotdog could breakdance on. Their app would then stick the hotdog there, something that could still be done when the user moved their phone, allowing the hotdog to keep dancing in the same spot.
While the dancing hotdog may be one of the sillier applications of computer vision, it successfully showed the world the potential of the technology. In a world full of cameras, from the billions of smartphones, security cameras, and satellites in use every day, to Internet of Things (IoT) devices, being able to interpret images yields great benefits...