MUNICH AND SAN FRANCISCO - A leader in Augmented Reality (AR) technology and software, Metaio, unveils support for new 3D depth sensing camera systems due to hit mobile devices this year.

According to Metaio CTO and Co-Founder Peter Meier: “Smartphones and tablets have historically made use of single, “2D” cameras primarily intended for image capture, but as smart devices have become more powerful, we are demanding more and more from the optics of these devices.” Recent announcements from the likes of Google and Intel indicate new devices are hitting the market that can “see” the world in 3D via what are known as RGB-D (red, green, blue + depth) sensors. “With the ability to understand depth information, mobile devices will become significantly more powerful when it comes to Augmented Reality and computer vision tasks”.

The company released a video demonstrating the advanced Augmented Reality capabilities of two devices enhanced with depth-sensing cameras: A windows PC tablet, and an iPad featuring the new Structure Sensor from Occipital. The video illustrates how added 3D sensors make Augmented Reality much more powerful by virtually eliminating the need for markers in many use cases, and even more importantly, solving the “occlusion” problem where virtual data is not correctly rendered into the real environment in a natural way. Use cases include Augmented Reality gaming where digital objects react and interact with the physical environment, accurate indoor navigation that does not require a GPS signal and scanners that can extract 3D models from the environment as easily as shooting traditional video.

Occipital’s Structure Sensor is one of the first devices to be supported in the Metaio SDK. According to Occipital CEO and Co-Founder Jeff Powers: “We share a common goal with Metaio of allowing developers to create powerful and convincing 3D and AR experiences. It's why we created the Structure Sensor. Metaio’s support of the Structure Sensor and SDK will bring added realism to AR experiences with real world scale and occlusion.\"

Metaio’s flagship SDK will be updated to version 6.0 this month and will support depth sensor input from devices including the Occipital Structure sensor and other devices expected to hit the market early 2015. “Knowing that the likes of Google, and Intel are heavily investing in depth-sensing camera devices, we made sure our SDK is prepared for the next big surge of innovation that this hardware provides developers” says Peter Meier. Allowing for development on iOS, Android and Windows PC, the Metaio SDK is the most powerful Augmented Reality developer tool on the market, featuring the most advanced object tracking technology available.

A live demonstration highlighting the important benefits of RGB-D devices will be shown during InsideAR Munich on October 29th and 30th.

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