I think it depends on the context - if you're designing the whole system from bar code to camera, I'm not sure that the color will help. But in that case you can assume close to perfect optics and I'm not sure if you would find an improvement or the opposite over a monochrome setup with better SNR.
On the other hand if you're stuck with things like mobile phone cameras, and can only control the bar code side, then Id imagine you'd see some improvements as you say.
An interesting middle ground would be if you could get the raw image from the sensor before a generic debayer algorithm gets applied.
Good luck, keep up the good work... i've worked commercially on optical barcode systems and it's a super interesting topic (tho looks like my post has been downvoted out of existence so maybe you wont see this).
Cameras only see one colour per pixel (i.e. Bayer colour filter array). Because our eyes are not so acute at resolving colour compared to luminescence this tradeoff works well.
But in this context I'm not sure at a pixel level how much 'extra' information is added by _removing_ red/green from the blue pixels, green/blue from the red etc.
In other words, if the image came from a digital camera, to actually stuff more information into the same number of pixels, colour may or may not help. In any case working with the raw CFA bayer source image would almost certainly be beneficial over interpreting the image after it has been converted to a normal RGB image (losing information in the process)
There is a real, if small, chance that there could be a general election in the UK soon and potentially a more favourable labour government. If I were Assange I would do whatever I could to hang in there at least long enough to rule that possibility out.
Yup it did - I was flying aerial surveying at the time. Bad timing. Actually I didn't notice anything in the end so was all good but when I saw the NOTAM I couldn't believe my bad luck.
No I don't, my calculations at this stage are as follows:
Sail area - same as my 10 ton boat. Gets me to 7kts in a good strong wind.
Boat they intend to install it on: 110000 tons!
My point is that for this to have any impact at all, a massive amount of energy has to be extracted from the wind. An amount of energy that just doesn't exist in the volume of moving air they are talking about.
I understand that, in fact probably uniquely to people on this thread I've been on a rotor sail boat (not sailing though, in dock).
They do work when the ratio of the sail area to the boat is appropriate. In the case of the one I went on it was a very efficient hull too - very light weight catamaran.
The ships in the article you link have huge sails on reasonably small ships. The ones suggested by Norsepower are absolutely tiny compared to the ship. They are, like i've said, about the same cross sectional area of a small pleasure sailing yacht on huge container ships.
My back of the napkin assumed all energy from the wind over the entire cross sectional area.
Magnus effect or not, i'm just dealing in orders of magnitude and for the average wind speeds on shipping routes, I just don't understand how this works even if 100% of the wind energy is extracted from the cross sectional area of the sail.
I really want this to be a thing, but my rough calculations given the total cross section area of the sail and the average wind conditions on shipping routes come out to as close to nil as makes any difference for ships these size.
I posted a very rough calculation on the last HN post about this and got downvoted for some reason. I guess everyone else wants this to be a thing so much they are happy to set aside physics through sheer force of will. HN people and the investors / instigators of this project.
This is one time I'm desperately wanting to find out I'm completely wrong.
My last post in a nutshell - these things are order of magnitude the same size as the sail on my own sail boat. Forget about the type of sail. Even if 100% of that wind energy was converted to forward motion it's going to do essentially nothing in the context of a big ship.
I build camera gear for 172s and fly (as passenger, not pilot) probably 20-30 days per year, sometimes much more, and I get nervous at <60kts at low altitude.
40kts IAS is I guess around the full flaps stall speed but you sure don't want to be doing that intentionally. At least not with me in the plane please.
My small 12 meter long boat has a sail area of 900sqft. When sailing perpendicular to the wind it captures pretty much all of that.
The sail on that ship is 100' high, and looking at the aspect is around 15' wide, or 1500sqft. That type of sail I think only harneses half of that area, so half of 1500' or 750' best case.
I can say with complete confidence that if all the energy from two of my boats were towing one of those ships, even in a hurricane, it's going to increase fuel efficiency by approximately 0.0%
EDIT: I just did a random sample of wind speed [1] of points on the globe on international shipping routes [2] and it looks like they are generally around 10-15km/h. Thats barely enough to get my boat up to speed. There is a reason sailboats take very particular routes and don't just go from point A to B
Hey respected downvoters - pure means homogeneous. Can you please explain to be what ultra homogeneous means?
When discussing scientific concepts being haphazard with language seems like it should be called out, especially when the source is a respected publication like wired.
Simply take a few seconds to let us all know the error in my ways please.
On the other hand if you're stuck with things like mobile phone cameras, and can only control the bar code side, then Id imagine you'd see some improvements as you say.
An interesting middle ground would be if you could get the raw image from the sensor before a generic debayer algorithm gets applied.
Good luck, keep up the good work... i've worked commercially on optical barcode systems and it's a super interesting topic (tho looks like my post has been downvoted out of existence so maybe you wont see this).