Why can’t the fisheye distortion be removed with software?

It can, but the result of doing that is not a rectangular picture. You can crop it again, but then you lose a big part of the edges.

	▲	epicureanideal 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Anyone out there feel like making an app that fixes the distortion and then fills in the missing edges of the rectangle with generative ai? I’d sure enjoy using such an app.