Metaio adds support for 3D depth sensing camera systems

Augmented reality (AR) technology and software specialist Metaio has added support for 3D depth sensing camera systems due to hit mobile devices this year.

Augmented reality (AR) technology and software specialist Metaio has added support for 3D depth sensing camera systems due to hit mobile devices this year

Metaio said recent announcements from the likes of Google and Intel indicate new devices are hitting the market that can “see” the world in 3D via what are known as RGB-D (red, green, blue + depth) sensors.

Metaio’s flagship SDK will be updated to version 6.0 this month and will support depth sensor input from devices including the Occipital Structure Sensor and other devices expected to hit the market in early 2015.

Metaio co-founder and chief technology officer Peter Meier said: ‘Smartphones and tablets have historically made use of single, 2D cameras primarily intended for image capture, but as smart devices have become more powerful, we are demanding more and more from the optics of these devices.

‘With the ability to understand depth information, mobile devices will become significantly more powerful when it comes to AR and computer vision tasks.’

Metaio has published a video demonstrating the advanced AR capabilities of two devices enhanced with depth-sensing cameras: a windows PC tablet and an iPad featuring the new Structure Sensor from Occipital. You can watch the video here.

The video shows how added 3D sensors make AR much more powerful by virtually eliminating the need for markers in many use cases, and even more importantly, solving the ‘occlusion’ problem where virtual data is not correctly rendered into the real environment in a natural way.

Occipital’s Structure Sensor is one of the first devices to be supported in the Metaio SDK, and Occipital co-founder and chief executive officer Jeff Powers said: ‘We share a common goal with Metaio of allowing developers to create powerful and convincing 3D and AR experiences. It's why we created the Structure Sensor. Metaio’s support of the Structure Sensor and SDK will bring added realism to AR experiences with real world scale and occlusion.’

Meier added: ‘Knowing that the likes of Google and Intel are heavily investing in depth-sensing camera devices, we made sure our SDK is prepared for the next big surge of innovation that this hardware provides developers.’

A live demonstration highlighting the benefits of RGB-D devices will be shown during the InsideAR show in Munich, Germany on October 29-30.

A feature looking at developments in the AR market will be published in Labels & Labeling, issue #6, 2014.