How do you turn physical spaces into digital ones? That’s a question that the three-year-old startup Occipital is trying to answer with products that range from its successful Structure Sensor, which captures 3D models of environments, to Canvas, its new, design-oriented iPad app that uses the Structure Sensor to turn 3D scans of spaces into usable digital models.
Now Occipital is launching the next tool in its mission to merge physical and digital spaces: A mobile headset called Bridge, compatible with iPhone 6, 6s, and 7, that uses the company’s Structure Sensor placed above the headset’s goggles to mix virtual reality with physical reality.
Bridge uses the 3D scanner to solve one of VR’s biggest problems—depth awareness—making it easier to prototype mixed reality experiences ranging from VR to AR and everything in between. For example, Bridge can tell where you are in your own space, and adapt the virtual world you’re seeing in the headset to what’s really around you, realistically mixing the real world with the virtual one. It’s something that other mobile headsets like Cardboard and Daydream can’t do yet, though most major VR makers are working on it. For example, Google’s developer toolkit Tango gives devices spatial awareness, and depth sensing is reportedly coming to the HTC Vive. Earlier this year, Intel announced a completely mobile VR headset that uses cameras to position the user in space.
Yet Bridge isn’t necessarily meant for consumers interested in buying a VR headset. In fact, most existing VR experiences don’t even have positional tracking enabled (though Occipital built a plugin to allow developers to quickly add it to their existing apps). Until they do, a consumer would really only be able to use Bridge as a fancy version of Google Cardboard. Instead, Bridge is designed for developers who want to play and build mixed reality experiences and apps with the integrated software toolkit.
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Source: Fastcodesign