Google Moves Into 3D With Project Tango
Written by Harry Fairhead   
Friday, 21 February 2014

Project Tango is a phone that has built-in depth sensors that make it easy to build a 3D model of its surroundings. The question is what are you going to do with it.?

Until now Google has kept out of the 3D revolution that was ushered in by the success of the Microsoft Kinect. But with Apple having just bought PrimeSense, the original designers of the Kinect, it seems like a good time for something new to roll out of the Googleplex. 

 

tangologo

 

Project Tango derives from Motorola's Advanced Technology and Projects group, which wasn't sold to Lenovo along with the rest of the Motorola Mobility assets that Google acquired in 2011.

It also seems that Tango is going to be introduced very slowly ,in the same way that Google Glass is being drip fed into the world. At the moment there are only 200 Tango devices and they are up for grabs by any developer who can convince Google that they have a good idea for a Tango app.

 

tangophone

 

It has a standard 4MP camera on the back plus an integrated depth sensor and a motion tracking camera. This allows the phone to work out its orientation and, putting this together with a quarter of a million 3d measurements per second, allow it to construct a 3D model.

This is very similar to the Kinect Fusion program that creates realtime models but built into a phone size package.

 

tangosense

 

The depth sensor is a  Myriad 1 from Movidius. This is a custom chip that uses GPU type architecture to produce lots of processing power without draining the battery. The custom software runs under Android, i.e. Tango is an Android phone. The apps are written in Java using C/C++ for the added speed processing so much data involves.

 

 

The video Google has produced shows the device being used for augmented reality applications and games that project out into the physical world.

Other application ideas include location and navigation tasks. It could, for example, guide you through a super-store to the product you wanted. It could also provide the 3D capture power needed to build the 3D equivalent of Google Street View.

If we all carried a 3D scanner in our phones it wouldn't take long to convert the entire world into a 3D model.

 

tangomodel

 

If you want to participate then simply fill in the form and wait. The allocation should be complete in time for a March 14th roll out. 

 

 tangologo

More Information

Project Tango -Including Application Form

Movidius

Related Articles

Apple Buys PrimeSense

The Kinect 2 Revolution

PrimeSense Imagines A 3D Sensor World

Kinect Avatar Animation

Kinect Fusion Coming to the SDK

Kinect@Home Builds A 3D World

KinectFusion - instant 3D models

Open Souce KinectFusion - Instant Interactive 3D Models

 

To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, install the I Programmer Toolbar, subscribe to the RSS feed, follow us on, Twitter, FacebookGoogle+ or Linkedin,  or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

 

raspberry pi books

 

Comments




or email your comment to: comments@i-programmer.info

 

Banner


Android 15 Developer Preview Released
19/02/2024

Android 15 Developer Preview has just been released by the Android team with features including partial screen sharing and the latest version of the Privacy Sandbox.



nginx Core Developer Announces New Fork
23/02/2024

One of the core developers of nginx has said he is no longer working on the development of the popular and widely used nginx web server, and is instead working on a new fork. Maxim Dounin release [ ... ]


More News

Last Updated ( Friday, 21 February 2014 )