Some may agree that through the years, augmented reality’s been slowly losing its appeal given its sometimes laggy and unreliable performance — most implementations require a peculiar marker to be in clear sight, and the graphics rendering speed to your handheld device would depend on your slow and steady hands. As such, we were initially skeptical when Sony’s SmartAR announcement came along; but as you will discover inside the video above, said technology took us all at once with its super slick responsiveness, and the markerless object recognition makes a compelling hassle-free selling point. What’s more, the identical clip also shows off SmartAR handling large 3D space conveniently — notice how the virtual objects continue to animate even if the unique anchor object is out of sight. Sony hasn’t given any dates here, but there isn’t any doubt that after SmartAR is out there to game developers and advertisers, it’ll rack in some nice pocket money for the electronics giant.
- Featured with markerless and high-speed object recognition & tracking besides as
dynamic 3D space recognition & image rendering -
Sony has developed integrated ‘Augmented Reality (hereafter known as ‘AR’) technology’ called as “Smart AR.” When capturing visuals through a camera on a tool similar to a smartphone, the technology enables additional info to be displayed at the device’s screens comparable to virtual objects, or images and texts that can’t be identified by visual perception alone. The technology employs the markerless approach, forgoing any requirement for special markers equivalent to 2D barcodes. The article captured by the camera is readily recognized and might be tracked at high-speed in conjunction with the movement of the camera, because it is displayed over the real 3D space.
AR technology has recently been the topic of much interest, and is getting used in numerous applications akin to advertisements, promotions, games, and knowledge searches. Sony began researching AR in 1994 with two-dimensional barcodes recognition (marker approach), and in 1998, it developed VAIO “PCG-C1″ personal computers equipped with software which automatically recognized ‘CyberCode*2.’
”SmartAR” technology combines ‘object recognition technology’ (markerless approach within which no special markers are required) for recognition of general objects together with photographs and posters with Sony’s own proprietary ’3D space recognition technology,’ which have been fostered during the research of robots corresponding to “AIBO” and “QRIO.” With “SmartAR” technology objects may be recognized and tracked at high-speed. As well as displaying virtual objects or additional image or text information (hereafter, ‘AR information’), the technology also facilitates the expression of AR information over a long space, thus producing a dynamic, large-scale AR experience.
Furthermore, information could be acquired or navigated by simply touching the AR information directly at the screen of the smartphone or other device, thus achieving an intuitive and seamless user interface it’s unique to “SmartAR.”
Sony will continue to experiment with “SmartAR” technology with the purpose to feature new value for diverse services and business applications which includes advertising and games.
< Main features >
(1) Object recognition that allows the markerless approach
AR information is also displayed at the captured image which appears on a device’s screen, including those images that don’t have any special markers for AR. This technology also is compatible with image recognition technologies that use conventional markers (along with “CyberCode*2″). Because “SmartAR” can recognize everyday objects corresponding to posters and menus, it has the opportunity of a wide selection of applications.
”SmartAR” object recognition technology identifies objects by analyzing features detected from a part of the picture (hereafter, ‘local features’) which include their positional relationship. Our feature matching technology that employs a proprietary probabilistic method that fits local features with minimal calculations enables high-speed recognition it is proof against changes in lighting or the location of the thing. Moreover, recognition remains possible even though the thing captured seems to be comparatively small inside the display.
(2) High-speed tracking (‘rapid & accurate’)
Sony achieved its natural-feeling ‘rapid & accurate’ AR by quickly displaying AR information at the screen after which tracking the camera’s movements at high-speed. This have been realized by combining object recognition technology with our proprietary matching technology that uses features detected from a part of the picture (‘local features’) and image tracking technology that’s able to handling changes within the shape of the thing.
(3) 3D space recognition
With our dynamic, large-scale AR, virtual objects may be merged with 3D structures detected within the physical world. For instance, even though the AR image is an enormous virtual character whose size exceeds the size of the device’s screen, the technology allows the user to understand the whole lot of the virtual character when the camera is moved around. Furthermore, it is usually possible to head the virtual object inside the actual 3D space as though it were really there.
Three-dimensional space recognition technology relies on use of the disparity observed by the camera movements to estimate the form of the 3D space and the placement and angle of the camera. By combining this with object recognition technology, devices become able to identifying and remembering 3D space constructions.
(4) AR Interaction
Information may be intuitively acquired and navigated by directly touching the AR information displayed at the smartphone or device’s screen. The uniqueness of “SmartAR” technology comes from the user interface which enables users to naturally use and operate more information and virtual objects.
Mozilla rumored to debut LG-made Boot to Gecko device at MWC
Drexel University turns to 3D scanners, printers to construct robotic dinosaurs
