Tango UP – Google graduates 3D tablet from the labs Google has thrown its 3D-sensing Project Tango fondleslab out of its labs, and into the embrace of Google itself. Project Tango is billed as giving “mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion,” a trick it pulls off by building motion-sensing cameras into mobile devices and then building up 3D models of the …
One would be to dynamically construct game 3D environments for use in both AR and VR. In the later case it could help VR users keep their spatial awareness without breaking the immersion of a virtual world. For the former it's a rather necessary step in superimposing graphics onto the real world.
There are some technical hurdles I'm not sure if they've sorted out. One being pathfinding for AI in VR. When a 3D landscape can be created in advance, pathing can be tested as well. I imagine procedurally generated worlds face some AI problems as well but the real world is harder since it doesn't follow an easily definable set of rules. Though some of the tech from self driving vehicles could be applied here. Which google obviously has experience with.
Though I suppose Tango could also be used to crowed source the generation of 3D models of.. well the entire earth given enough time. A 1:1 scale replica of the entire earth updated in near realtime? Kinda scary as much as it is neat.
"Its open source? Can you tell me how to fix the Middle East then, it never seems to work right in my copy."
Ah, but that's the beauty of FOSS. If it's not doing what you want it to, you can fix it yourself. Unfortunately, Earth 1.0 is more like Wikipedia. No matter how much you edit it to suit yourself, others will come along and change it back again.
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I have had an eye on 3D scanners for a while now for creative uses and the Occipital structure sensor for iDevices is a reasonable bit of kit for capturing a 3D model of a person for use in 3D printing or laser cutting a pewter mold from MDF, but the capture detail is on the low side. Bring on the consumer 3D scanner wars so I can get the cheap, high-resolution, pocket sized device I've been hankering for. Couldn't give a dern about games. Maybe if everyone starts capturing 3D data, someone will figure out a decent UI for basic 3D manipulation (say what you like about iOS, but if a 3 year old can get it to do what they want with almost no training, its a step forward in UI design). Maybe the Tango sensor could AR the hands and 3D objects together to figure this out. Whatever, the more people see the problem, the better the solution will be.
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