Qualcomm's Awesome Vuforia SDK Brings Augmented Reality to Eyewear

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Some exciting things are happening in the world of virtual reality, and we're not just talking about the Oculus Rift. Multiple companies are jumping on board with the VR movement, including chip maker Qualcomm, which unveiled its Vuforia mobile vision platform that developers can use to build augmented reality (AR) applications for a new generation of digital hardware.
The Vuforia Software Development Kit (SDK) for Digital Eyewear offers a "major advance in user experience," Qualcomm says. Using the SDK, developers can program apps with interactive 3D content that's visually aligned with the underlying world. This has all kinds of potential uses -- everything from gaming to shopping and education, etc.
"The promise of digital eyewear is to create a heads-up display for our daily lives. While the realization of this promise remains in the future, Vuforia is taking a big step in the right direction by enabling a first generation of applications for consumer and enterprise use," said Jay Wright, vice president of product management for Qualcomm Connected Experiences, Inc. "Developers will now have the tools required to build experiences that will drive the adoption of the digital eyewear category. We look forward to seeing what developers make possible."

Two new features of the Vuforia SDK include Smart Terrain and HD Camera View. Short and to the point, these technologies allow users to build their own gaming environment using everyday objects. Smart Terrain then creates a 3D map of the environment you created in real-time, which in turn gives apps the ability to interact with those objects. In the video above, you can see various McDonald's objects -- cola cup, fry box, burger box -- placed on a table. A soccer app then maps the objects and allows you to make trick shots off of those items.

As it pertains to wearable headsets, a lot of neat things are possible with the Vuforia SDK, and not just for gaming. For example, you could be staring at an object like a water pump through a digital headset and see how to tear it down, step-by-step. Or an engine or any other object.
The Vuforia SDK for Digital Eyewear will be available this fall in beta form for a select group of developers.
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