Careful in comparing resolution numbers. I believe the old cameras are 1280 x 960 (960p not 720p, though roughly in that class). I don't see numbers for the new cameras, but a good guess would be double the linear resolution i.e. 2560x1920, hence the 5MP description.
I think the 5K number is 2x too high and the 720p number is a bit low. Nonetheless, I think it's still true that the improved resolution could justify the removal of one of the cameras - however the net result may not be nearly as good as if all three cameras were kept an upgraded.
For resolving and classifying distant objects, the most important Improvement is the ratio of linear resolution which appears to be double, or close to that. And we assume that the optics support that, not limiting the sensor.
It's probably a safe assumption,
if the two cameras are set with different focal lengths, that the wide front camera will remain - because they need that basic field of view. The doubled resolution could, very roughly, double the claimed distance it's capable of, from "60m" to perhaps "120m".
The next question is whether they will keep the FOV of the present medium camera, and use its doubled resolution to justify an improvement from"150m" to perhaps "300m", slightly better than the claimed "250m" of the existing narrow front camera. Alternatively, they could keep the narrow FOV camera, leveraging the doubled resolution to go from existing "250m" to perhaps "500m". This is a more significant Improvement for high-speed highway driving, and the justification would be that the medium camera is no longer required because it's role can now largely be taken by the wide-F9V camera.
( sorry for the tedious use of quote marks around all the distance numbers; I'm doing that because these are all approximate claims based on debatable blur standards etc.)
Of course, they could be doing some in-between FOV for the second camera, not reaching quite as far but doing a better job to make up for the lost medium-view camera.
Another possibility is that they use two symmetrical
equal-FOV cameras, a left and a right that together cover the wide view but with better resolution then before, because of the doubled sensor resolution combined with a narrower view for each. There would be some overlap of the two views directly forward, and signal-processing principles would result in a further virtual-resolution improvement (but less than a complete doubling) due to the merging of two images in the central overlap area. For
@brkaus : this would maybe justify the use of the word "binocular", but I wouldn't assume. too strongly that the word was used properly or conventionally, in this leaked internal (translated Chinese?) document. In any case, too much is made here on TMC of the binocular i.e. stereoscopic range-finding advantage of two closely-spaced cameras. This is important for humans in the near field, but not too helpful at longer distances on the road. The triangulation effect is insufficient unless the cameras were to be moved farther apart (increased "baselength").\
It will be interesting to see the revealed setup, and like many others I hope there will be an upgrade path (whether "free" for FSD purchasers or not).
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