NEWS

Apple applies for AR navigation patent

Release time:

2016-08-25 16:22

Nanjing Hua News: The patent application mentions that AR navigation technology can be used in products such as smart phones, tablet computers and smart glasses. We might as well boldly guess that after Apple Watch, Apple will launch a new product series, and the new product is closely related to AR.

Cook recently re-emphasized that Apple is very interested in AR technology, but he still refused to disclose any information about Apple's AR hardware or AR software.

However, the search ability of the broad masses of the people should not be underestimated, otherwise we would not know what new products are coming out before the Apple development conference. Recently, Nanjing Hua Xun, which has great power, discovered that Apple has registered a patent for AR navigation technology, which is also the first AR technology developed by Apple after it acquired AR startup Flyby Media.

Apple's AR navigation patent is called visual inertial navigation (Visual-based inertial navigation), which allows the device to read sensors and cameras such as accelerators and gyroscopes, and then position itself in three-dimensional space.

Equipped with visual inertial navigation, the device can use images and parameters to locate in real time without GPS and networking, and the accuracy can reach centimeter level.

The patent application also mentions that AR navigation technology can be used in products such as smartphones, tablets and smart glasses. Since Apple mentioned smart glasses, we might as well boldly guess that after Apple Watch, Apple will launch a new product series, and the new product is closely related to AR.

In this AR navigation patent, Apple uses a technology called sliding window reverse filtering (SWF), which can reduce device consumption when calculating and analyzing image and location data. In other words, Apple wants to use the least amount of power and memory and other device resources to help you locate and let you know where you are in the building.

SWF works:

1. Overlay the photos taken by the camera;

2. Processing photo information;

3. Tracking photo information characteristics;

4. The sensor uses the information fed back by the SWF to determine the status and location of the device to complete the positioning.

SWF can not only be used for AR navigation of equipment, but also help users find lost items in specific spaces such as shops.

Like other Apple patented technologies published online, AR navigation technology will not necessarily appear in Apple's future products. But at least, this patent tells us that Apple does attach great importance to the development of AR technology.