Lispix - A Graphics and Computer Vision Algorithm Tester
Abstract
Lispix is a tensor based, graphing calculator like application. It is focused around fast iteration on image algorithms. It is similar in spirit to Desmos, but based around the Lisp language and makes it easy to test image algorithms as you write them.
Introduction
As anyone who has experience working on computer vision problems knows, it is paramount to not only build the correct model for the job, train with the right good quality data, but there is almost always some additional raw graphics work that will need to go along with the model. Either pre-processing or post-processing, and sometimes an intermingled algorithm that does that secret sauce thing.
From Slide Rules to Quantization
In an effort to fight off atrophy from using AI too much, I’ve started playing with slide rules - basically, calculators before calculators (after abacuses). They are quite hard to buy in this day and age, but there are some paper ones you can print out. And if you are good at PCBs maybe you can help me try to make one?
The way slide rules work is: if you mark a ruler with logarithmic spacing, multiplication becomes addition. This is a pretty cool maths trick in that you are adding exponents, and then you can pow() them back to reality. I think of it as “working in Log10 space” which would probably make an actual mathemagician cringe. But basically, you slide one scale along another, read off the answer, and keep track of the decimal point in your head. It’s absolutely amazing engineers built bridges and got to the moon with this.