Vision-based augmented reality — that is, pulling in data from a device’s camera and using it to position and rotate 3D models drawn on top of an on-screen view of the real world — isn’t really anything new. We started seeing tech demos of the concept 5+ years ago, and games like Sony’s Eye of Judgment have been doing it for nearly as long. More recently, the concept has been moving to mobile phones — a perfect fit, given that the camera and display are built into one unit.
Up until this point, however, the idea has been more or less exclusive to those with gobs of cash or manpower to spare. Anyone who built up their own Vision-based AR tech generally kept it pretty close to their chest, so building a Vision-based AR app meant rebuilding things from the ground up.
It looks like the endless reinvention of the same wheel is coming to a close. At Qualcomm’s recent Uplinq conference, they announced their plans to release a free Vision-based AR platform to mobile developers. Why? To sell more phones, of course.
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