I took the liberty of transcribing Planet's answer to a backer's question about the Astro's expected camera quality. This is from Indiegogo's Astro Slide update #20, January 15, 2021:
"The second video addresses the questions that we were asked by you, our backers, this week."
https://youtu.be/SgQ8NTituUA 8:02-9:24
CHRIS BIGNELL - XL COMMUNICATIONS: "Entienne asks about the camera quality in terms of uh, you know, the, within the Cosmo, the MediaTek stack did not give um, did not support the full capabilities of the sensor, uh, that I know is something that has been improved over time, uh, is there likely to be, uh is that likely to be a problem with Astro Slide, or is that something that we think we've resolved?"
DR JANKO MRSIC-FLOGEL - CEO, PLANET: "So we think there'll be a huge improvement in the camera, uh, one because uh, the uh, the sensor is a Sony sensor, it's a high quality, you know, Tier 1 sensor, and uh, uh, the pre-- it's 48 megapixel and high quality with uh, um, standard oriented, so basically uh uh um uh, a square-type orientation, um, um, a square-type organization of the CMOS, whereas the uh, CMOS sensor, whereas the, uh, the previous sensor was a 24, uh, megapixel sensor from Samsung which has a hexagonal organization of CMOS, so basically it's, it's far be-- the n-- the new sensor not just that it has a larger resolution but it's uh, uh, the-- the organization of pre-- the CMOS sensor is actually better so you'll get a, a far superior performance."
CHRIS BIGNELL: "Good to hear, thank you, and I'd also like to thank Felagund and Colin W., two other backers that asked the same question around the camera."
God bless them for trying and I wish them the best, but wow... Planet has absolutely zero understanding of the Cosmo camera issue. The backer understood. He obviously read our Cosmo camera forum posts. Planet did not! The issue lies entirely with the MediaTek software stack! It's not a question of needing higher resolution. It's not a question of "CMOS hexagonal organization" versus "CMOS square organization" (whatever that means). The sensor itself, as we have proven, takes sharp, detailed, beautiful photos with the right software: Google Camera ported to the Cosmo (
https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?topic=35912.msg297145#msg297145) which completely bypasses the MediaTek imaging stack for photos.
Regarding hexagonal or square pixel arrays, Planet's explanation truly left me scratching my head. Samsung's Tetracell and Sony's Quad Bayer are both Bayer filter mosaics in a square pixel array, albeit with multiple adjacent pixels for each color. But the colors are still staggered. Neither is a hexagonal pixel array, which is very uncommon, and if the Cosmo's Samsung sensor were, it would actually be a computational improvement (but not an image improvement). And neither has any bearing on MediaTek's inability to properly process raw image data.
It's also amazing how the Cosmo camera issue magically "has been improved over time." Wonder how that happened.
I think GCam would produce fantastic photos with a 48MP Quad Bayer sensor. But for the record, I am not backing the Astro.