Smart Terrain feature enriches digital experience

Qualcomm Incorporated has expanded its mobile vision platform to include the Smart Terrain feature, a 3D reconstruction capability that steps up the interactivity level to augmented reality experiences. The company also announced an object recognition technology that will soon be available to select developers in a beta program.

Vuforia is a mobile vision platform that enables apps to see and connect the physical world with digital experiences that demand attention, drive engagement, and deliver value. The Smart Terrain technology, meanwhile, was first demonstrated on mobile via a depth-aware camera. The technology will be incorporated with Vuforia 3.0 SDK, and will enable smartphone and tablet devices to utilise existing cameras.

Apps powered by Smart Terrain can enable users to create their own play space where game characters interact with the physical world—characters can navigate around, collide with and jump over objects in the user's environment.

McDonald's is the first global brand to use the Smart Terrain capability in a commercial application. The McDonald's GOL! Mobile App is a new virtual trick-shot challenge soccer game powered by the Vuforia platform and developed by Trigger and DDB Chicago that enables digital gameplay within real-world environments.

In addition, Vuforia object recognition technology has been significantly enhanced to support toys including vehicles and action figures. This capability will address the growing need of the toy industry to develop new play interactions that combine mobile devices with physical toys. With Vuforia toy recognition, toy manufacturers and game developers can build a variety of new experiences. For example, kids could activate new app functionality with the purchase of a new toy, teleport a physical toy into a game experience, or experience imaginative play around the toy using AR. Toy recognition will soon be available for select developers in a beta program. Developers can request to participate in the beta program at the Vuforia developer website.

An overview of the application development process with the Vuforia platform, which consists of the Vuforia Engine (inside the SDK), the Target Management System hosted on the developer portal, and optionally, the Cloud Target Database. Source: Qualcomm