It's an old adage in the art world that good artists copy the work of their masters, but the great artists steal it (link). With that in mind, a reader of the blog pointed out the apparent similarities between the Camera Match Overlay in Input-Ace (link) and a patent on file at the USTPO (link).
If you read the marketing around the Overlay tool, you might begin to notice the similarities between it and the patent. But, don't be fooled. US Patent 9,305,401 (link) describes a system for building out a scene in 3D utilizing images from that scene, then conducting various measurements. Overlay does none of that. Overlay does exactly what the name implies - it allows you to take the user interface of Input-Ace and "overlay" on top of the user interface of the tool with which you are actually conducting your measurement exam. The idea is that you can infer the location of images present in the images loaded in ACE, and overlaid on the measurement tool, from the data in the measurement tool. Because of this, I don't think ACE is infringing on anyone's patents - in my opinion.
Yes, the patented process is operationalized into Cognitech's software, and that software is actually reconstructing the scene and performing the measurement exams. No, Input-Ace's Camera Match Overlay tool is not reconstructing a scene and is not used directly in conducting the measurement. Yes, it does lend a hand in attempting to calculate the range of potential measurement values (and thus the error potential in the measurement), so you'll need to be extra careful in how you report and present your results using their methods. You'll also need to explain how you validated your unique results. Yes, you should validate any tool used in your work as well as the results that lead to an opinion / conclusion.
Thanks for reading. Keep the comments coming. Have a good day my friends.
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