Snapchat’s patent, published by the US Patent and Trademark Office, talks about seamlessly integrating Augmented Reality (AR) in real world scenarios. The technology uses GPS or similar system to determine a user’s location. After they’ve clicked a picture of a real world scenario (park for example), the technology then matches these images against its own set of image database to place digital objects in real world pictures.
How does it work?
According to the patent, the technology would have the users capture their surrounding environment by taking shooting a video via the Snapchat app. This data would then be used as ‘an initial rough location estimate to identify façade data about local buildings’ which would be determined by GPS or another location service, the patent explains in regards to what the environment looks like. The system then searches through its data base for an image that matches with what the users is seeing, which would then be placed in the scene. And the patent gives a few examples including virtual animals, robots and dinosaurs.
The patent
The patent, entitled ‘Image based tracking in augmented reality systems’ was filed by Snapchat in October 2015 and published on Thursday. According to the document, the technology would have the users capture their surrounding environment by taking shooting a video via the Snapchat app. This data would then be used as ‘an initial rough location estimate to identify façade data about local buildings’ which would be determined by GPS or another location service, the patent explains in regards to what the environment looks like. The system then searches through its data base for an image that matches with what the users is seeing, which would then be placed in the scene.
