Google has announced it’s working on a service to offer detailed indoor location positioning using its Tango[1] 3D sensing computer vision tech.
“One thing we’ve seen clearly is that AR is most powerful when it’s tightly coupled to the real world, and the more precisely the better,” said Clay Bavor, speaking at Google’s I/O conference today. “That’s why we’ve been working with the Google Maps team on a service that can give devices access to very precise location information indoors.”
Bavor described the feature as “kind of like GPS” but instead of talking to satellites — which isn’t necessarily viable given indoor reception issues — the cameras on a Tango device triangulate position based on “distinct visual features in the environment”.
“We think it’s going to be incredibly useful in a whole bunch of places,” he said.
Google’s name for the tech is “visual positioning service” — or VPS.
Bavor gave the example of a large DIY store where a shopper is trying to find a particular item. “Imagine in the future your phone could just take you to that exact screwdriver and point it out to you on the shelf,” he said.
He did not give a specific timeframe for a launch — saying only that the tech is “working today”.
He also showed a video demo of the system which uses a series of visual feature points to navigate indoors, and determines where it is by comparing new points with previously observed ones so “the phone can figure out exactly where it is in space — down to a few centimeters”.
It’s unclear how well it would fair in interior environments without too many distinct visual features to latch on to, however.
“GPS can get you to the door. And then VPS can get you...
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