Machines need an exact digital copy of our world if we are going to create accurate augmented reality applications or allow robots to deliver food. If tech optimists are to be believed, in 10 years there will be self-driving cars everywhere, drones will deliver our packages, and robots will deliver food. And one day our cities will be painted with augmented reality that will look exactly like the streets on which it will be superimposed.
How to create a 3D mirror copy of the world
Whether it happens sooner or later, one piece of the puzzle will be critical: ultra-precise positioning technology. GPS and flickering blue dot in smartphone map apps are very convenient for a person who is traveling in an unfamiliar city, but not suitable for cars. They will need to know where everything is to the nearest centimeter.
London-based startup Scape believes it can deliver. According to co-founder Edward Miller, the company's visual positioning service uses GPS and multiple camera images to pinpoint where you are in literally two to three seconds. He collected over two billion street images and compiled an accurate 3D map of over 100 cities around the world, including London, San Francisco, Paris, Moscow and Tokyo. Some of the data was collected by employees who traveled to cities with cameras attached to bicycles, but the Scape platform can handle images from any source.
When used, Scape's algorithms extract “points of interest” (such as street signs, shop windows, or lampposts) from any image to compare with the billions already in the database. The system then uses triangulation to determine the angle and distance from which the object was observed and returns its exact location to the end user. This kind of precision will tie augmented reality to the world better than is possible with GPS or other technologies, making it much more impressive and versatile.
Scape is taking things to the next level, Miller says. We are talking about expanding this opportunity to the size of a whole living city.
There are already some impressive applications of augmented reality, mostly in the entertainment world: just a few days ago, Snapchat celebrated the launch of the new season of Game of Thrones by releasing virtual dragons in New York. But many commercial companies also want augmented reality products to be locked away for customers as they pass through the city. Relying on GPS will be wrong because things don't work as well as we would like.
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“Using existing location technologies, you can move around the city with an accuracy of several meters. That's okay, but for augmented reality you need a completely different level of accuracy,”says Kristian Mikolajczyk, a computer vision expert at Imperial University.
Of course, such precision will not only help AR apps. Making machines understand their environment is a challenge for many companies.
Waymo, for example, equips its cars with GPS, lidar, cameras and radar sensors to help them navigate autonomously. Starship Technologies, which provides robotic delivery services, takes a similar approach. The difference here is in the level of accuracy and the fact that Scape does this exclusively with cameras that are significantly less expensive than lidar and other laser technologies. The company's platform also differs from others in creating maps that can cope with changes in the environment, which is essential for creating a unified version of the world for humans and computers. This is important so that people can pick up packages from drones and robots.
Scape wants to leverage its location services to become the core infrastructure that hosts driverless cars, robotics, and augmented reality services.
Ready to see the mirror world?
Ilya Khel