Hello 3D Tracking and Mapping for PointCloud™ Browser — and hello PointCloud™ SDK
Last summer, we received quite a bit of attention from press and industry (see http://13thlab.com/company/press) for being the first company in the world to bring the NASA pioneered SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping) technology (e.g. used in Mars rovers to track 3D spaces and objects), to an iOS application through the iPad 2 game Ball Invasion. It is still the only application in the AppStore to use this technology, but today we’re about to change that by making our PointCloud™ technology available to any iOS developer — for free!
As expected, the technology is made available as an iOS library that can be embedded in a stand-alone iOS application written in Objective-C. You’ll find the library at http://pointcloud.io/
But even cooler — and in another world’s first — we’re also incorporating SLAM into the PointCloud™ Browser, thus allowing non C++/Objective-C developers to develop applications with our technology using simply JavaScript and HTML. To give it a go, simply download the PointCloud™ Browser from the AppStore, try the free JavaScript version of the Ball Invasion game that was launched in June, look at the source code on the PointCloud™ website (http://pointcloud.io/) and start coding your own JavaScript 3D application!
13th Lab releases PointCloud Browser - Giving the web eyes
What if a browser could see? Wouldn’t that change the Internet forever?
Wouldn’t it be great if a mobile web page could just adapt to what is in front of the device, simply by pointing the phone towards it? We think so. As a world’s first, 13th Lab brings blazingly fast image recognition to a standard webkit browser, letting a normal HTML/JavaScript web page understand and react to what is in front of it. At 13th Lab we believe that the true mobile web is actually the existing web, but connected to reality and to physical things. We believe that the camera will soon replace the GPS as the device’s most important sensor for understanding the world around you. Read more about PointCloud here.
Come meet 13th Lab at Mobile World Congress!
You’ll find us in Hall 1, stand E19 together with our good friends at Fjord.
If you have a chance, make sure to come by on Tuesday February 28th at 5pm to the Fjord/Spotify/foursquare cocktail mingle to meet us as well as key people from Fjord, Spotify and foursquare.
Hope to see you in Barcelona!
Ball Invasion is now live! The game is the world’s first iPad 2 application based on a 3D tracking technology originally invented by NASA.
The technology, which we believe will revolutionize mobile computer vision (such as Augmented Reality), is called Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). SLAM makes it possible to build and track a simple 3D model of the world around you in real time, using only the device’s built-in camera. This technology allows for a much more stable, robust and versatile user experience than existing techniques for calculating a mobile device’s position in the real world, which usually use either compass, GPS and accelerometer or pre-defined visual markers.
About 13th Lab
At 13th Lab we are developing the next generation computer vision platform for mobile devices. We believe the camera has the potential to become the most important device sensor, and we are building the tools to enable this.
Learn more about the company.
Technology
Our platform is based on SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping). The technology was originally invented by NASA to be used by autonomous vehicles on space missions. Our implementation uses the camera of the mobile device to build 3D maps of the surroundings in real-time and determine the device’s location and orientation within these maps.
Platform
Our aim is to make our platform available to other developers. We believe computer vision in itself is too complicated for everyone to be making their own implementations. If you are interested in beta testing our platform, check out our developer page.
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