SoftKinetic, a provider of 3D vision technology, has announced that the company is entering the Augmented Reality (AR) for Mobile Platforms market along with new Robotics implementations, allowing users to interact in 3D with devices in both short range and long range environments. The company demonstrated its DepthSense® 3D Time of Flight (ToF) camera – which uses the Qualcomm® Vuforia™ mobile vision platform, a product of Qualcomm Connected Experiences, Inc. – for the first time at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. SoftKinetic also showed for the first time a prototype of its DepthSense camera, running on robotic platforms powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 805 processor.
“Augmented Reality and Robotics are such exciting arenas, with more and more technologies coming to market that support truly sophisticated capabilities for users to engage with the world around them in fun and beneficial ways,” said Michel Tombroff, CEO of SoftKinetic. “Qualcomm’s Vuforia is a perfect example of a platform that allows our DepthSense technology to deliver at its fullest capacity, creating the most robust mobile AR experience available to anyone, anywhere.”
SoftKinetic showed a dense 3D reconstruction of a room-sized environment running entirely on a Snapdragon powered device with the aid of a depth-sensing camera. This technology allows users to perform a wide variety of natural and photorealistic AR experiences, such as placing virtual furniture into the open space of an existing room to see exactly how it would function, or customizing toy and play with it in an augmented environment, or measuring and cutting in the kitchen or workroom with the help of AR glasses to create the perfect project.
“Depth sensing technology is critical for us to enable the next generation of augmented reality experiences with Vuforia,” said Jay Wright, vice president of product management for Qualcomm Vuforia. “Once integrated in devices, SoftKinetic’s DepthSense technology will enhance Vuforia Smart Terrain™ to provide experiences with much greater immersion and increased ease of use.”
SoftKinetic’s DepthSense technology provides high resolution, low power consumption, small form factor and simple manufacturing processes for AR, 3D scanning and gesture recognition on mobile platforms.
