Layar Vision puts augmented reality on top of real world objects

Augmented reality is a pretty cool concept and it has slowly been finding its way into consumer devices, starting off as a novel idea but eventually growing into something useful. We have come across augmented reality apps that help drivers to judge the distance between cars, augmented reality games that make use of your surroundings to act as a battle field and also patents developed by Apple regarding augmented reality which would help to aid GPS navigation.

Today Layar, one of the larger augmented reality platforms, has launched Layar Vision that will be able to recognize real world objects and show digital content on top of them, such as newspapers, magazines and posters, allowing you to share what you’re viewing with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

As it stands Layar Vision can instantaneously detect up to 50 objects and combine them with location-based layers and how it works is that uploaded objects to the Layar server will be analyzed for a unique “fingerprint” which will then be sent to the Layar client which is an app on a mobile device. Then whenever the user scans an object in real life, Layar will then attempt to match it based on their database and provide an AR layer on top of it. If you think about it, it’s sort of like Shazam but for objects instead of music.

To kickstart the launch of Layar Vision, users can register for the Layar Creation Challenge which is worth $55,000 in total cash prizes. The 10 developers with the best concepts for useful and unique layers using Layar Vision will receive anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000, with the winners being picked by an expert panel.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Apps, Augmented Reality (AR)