CVPR 2023 - The Differentiable Lens: Compound Lens Search over Glass Surfaces and Materials for Object Detection

In this episode we discuss The Differentiable Lens: Compound Lens Search over Glass Surfaces and Materials for Object Detection by Geoffroi Côté, Fahim Mannan, Simon Thibault, Jean-François Lalonde, Felix Heide. This paper proposes a novel approach to joint optimization of camera lens systems with other image processing components, particularly neural networks. The authors introduce a differentiable spherical lens simulation model and an optimization strategy that includes quantized continuous glass variables and manufacturability constraints to facilitate the optimization and selection of glass materials. The proposed method achieves improved detection performance in automotive object detection, even when lens designs are simplified to two- or three-element lenses, despite degrading image quality.