[HN Gopher] Lightform's Sunset
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Lightform's Sunset
Author : xbryanx
Score : 58 points
Date : 2022-02-07 17:38 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lightform.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lightform.com)
| trimbo wrote:
| I've followed this company since it was a research project at
| UIUC. I really admire what they built and feel sad it's shutting
| down.
|
| Good luck to all, and I look forward to whatever you do next!
| josh2600 wrote:
| Lightform is sick. I wish they'd open source everything instead
| of (I assume) selling all IP to a patent troll to recoup sunk
| costs.
|
| If I were a VC, I would make it a covenant in any seed investment
| that the company had to open-source everything if they didn't
| make it to profitability.
|
| I honestly feel, in this day and age, patents don't really help
| you until you get to the scale that they do (purely defensive)
| unless you're a troll.
|
| Don't feed the trolls.
| astroalex wrote:
| I completely agree.
|
| I think in the case of Lightform, their core projection mapping
| algorithm is already public and has open source
| implementations. It's called "structured light". A quick search
| turned up this open source implementation:
| https://github.com/jhdewitt/sltk
| bsedlm wrote:
| maybe that's why they failed, they should have kept it closed
| and private with tight controls, patents, etc... in order to
| really profit.
|
| couldn't they even get in trouble with their investors for
| having failed to achieve profitability with this misguided
| "open" strategy?
|
| /devil's-advocate
| grishka wrote:
| Yet another company shutting down but keeping their proprietary
| products proprietary for some bizarre reason. "Since we won't
| benefit from it any more, no one else should either"?
| bsedlm wrote:
| nobody wants people to get things as valuable* as their hard-
| earned IP without either paying up, or putting in the pain and
| sweat just like they did.
|
| also, you wouldn't want the Chinese to get this for free
| either, right?
|
| *potentially valuable
|
| /angry-snark
|
| I just dunno what to do to counteract this tendency I perceive
| which ends up undoing the public domain in lieu private, trade-
| able "IP".
| grishka wrote:
| In my world it's valuable _for the humanity_ merely by the
| fact that it 's already been invented. The progress has
| already been made. Other people could improve upon it instead
| of reinventing the same thing over and over again. Yes, the
| Chinese will get it for free. But your company is shutting
| down, it's not going to earn you a cent more either way. You
| aren't going to incur any additional losses by open-sourcing
| your product, are you?
| [deleted]
| ethagknight wrote:
| I bought a Lightform unit early on, and frankly I was
| underwhelmed with the overall deal. In particular, for some
| reason, I had the impression that I could use the camera/scanning
| features interactively, but unfortunately no, the
| scanning/detection features were purely for scene set up, and
| then its running a video file from there. It seemed like there
| was only nominal benefit compared to just setting up a projector
| and manually cutting up the desired scene. Moving the projector
| or moving new props into the scene requires a complete rescan of
| the scene. Lightform saved time for sure, but it didn't seem to
| take any leaps in terms of possibilities or 'magic'.
|
| On top of that, once the scene is scanned and the program is set
| up to run, I assumed I could keep that video file / program
| running on a raspberry pi or something and move the Lightform on
| to the next project... nope. Had to keep the unit tethered to the
| scene.
|
| The few times I set it up for demos for people, the consensus
| was, "huh thats kinda neat, is that all it does?"
|
| Its possible some features got updated and more interesting stuff
| is possible. For now, my Lightform is sitting in the closet and
| Im sorta surprised they survived this long to be honest.
| kevinsundar wrote:
| Anyone know of any alternatives? This honestly doesn't seem like
| a hard technical challenge if you've got a high quality webcam.
| forgotmyoldacc wrote:
| Lightform's LFX project is really cool. Unfortunate that the
| company is shutting down.
| bberenberg wrote:
| Was Lightform solving the right problem? If the optical mapping
| is done, I would guess that the hard part will remain as making
| custom art for that specific topography. Can someone correct me
| here?
| [deleted]
| ethagknight wrote:
| Per my other comment, I think you are correct, they weren't
| really solving the right problem. I dont know what problem they
| should have been focusing on, but the end result didn't seem to
| hit on anything _for me_ , understanding that maybe I wasn't
| the target customer.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| This is a mistake.
|
| They need to pivot to AR/VR
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