AR, AI ML, CV, Oh My!

The AI in AR (Augmented Reality)

We hear about Artificial Intelligence (AI) all the time now. It seems to be coming from everywhere. NPR has sponsors like consulting firms specializing in it. Google seems to have an AI breakthrough once a month. They’ve got AI writing AI! Startups with AI in their name seem to get funded on that basis alone. Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are siding with Stephen Hawking in worrying about AI, all the while pushing the boundaries of it’s capabilities.

I think it’s fair to say, it’s all the rage.

What’s this got to do with Augmented Reality (AR)? AR is hard. Let me say that again, louder. AR is HARD. Pulling off the blending of digital reality with physical reality in any believable (or better yet, useful) fashion requires many disciplines to all come together. To name just a few:

• Graphic Designers
• 3D Modelers
• Animators
• Hardware Specialists
• Innovative new hardware
• Computer Vision
• Machine Learning

The blending of the physics of the real world, and the physics of your digital model is no trivial feat.

This is where the AI in AR comes in. Advances in Augmented Reality in the last year, the release of Software Development Kits (SDK)’s ARCore (Google) and ARKit (Apple) are the product of not months, but years of advanced software engineering, as well as work on custom hardware solutions, to bring all this together, and make it available to “everyday” application developers. The Augmented Reality developer of 2016 needed to know a whole lot more physics and light calculations, and computer vision algorithms, to pull off AR. In 2018 we can get started more readily and need to know a lot less to get it done.

Let’s take just the last 2 in our list. Computer Vision (CV) and Machine Learning (ML). CV embodies the physicality of how the computer perceives images. Different mechanisms in filters and preprocessors do things like edge detection, corner detection and the like — even face detection. ML is typically a layer on top of that — and very often using those recent entrants into the common vernacular “neural networks” — that creates a sophisticated pattern recognition system allowing the machine to see and remember faces, detect tables (planes), perceive depth. Heck the Hololens has 16 processing chipsets for these purposes! (Which is probably why it’s the most amazing device I’ve seen.)

The point of all this is that it’s useful to be aware that:

• AR is the Future
• AR is HARD
• AI makes AR better and easer (think ‘viable’)
• A surprising amount of AI for AR is “boxed and ready” for your use
• It’s time to start building that AR app
• 2018/2019 are going to be the dawn of handset-driven AR which will be superceded by
• Headset AR is on the horizon. Imagine not having to stare down at your phone while figuring out where you are going…

Lets start Augmenting our Reality.

Full Article at: http://solipsar.com/2018/02/07/the-ai-in-ar/