A report published by ABI Research is predicting significant growth in the number of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) devices that contain dedicated machine vision/embedded vision hardware, such as Google Tango-enabled smartphones.
Machine vision or embedded vision refers to devices that use sensors and coprocessors to interpret meaning from images or video. Applications such as Blippar already use a type of machine vision to implement its AR content, though relying on software instead of dedicated hardware.
Michael Inouye, Principal Analyst at ABI Research says: “Readily available software-based vision applications greatly expand the potential user base, but the added robustness and accuracy afforded by dedicated hardware will engender new use cases. This is especially true in enterprise and commercial settings; building off an already extensive foundation, mobile devices with dedicated embedded systems will support an extensive range of use cases and needs.”
“Our market forecast is aggressive and counts on several major mobile device manufacturers releasing models with embedded vision,” concludes Sam Rosen, Managing Director and Vice President at ABI Research. “But current sentiments point to 2019 to 2020 as a key inflection period where the applications enabled by embedded vision will increasingly become integral elements of our day-to-day activities. There is also a confluence between some device categories, such as mobile and mobile-reliant VR, that further support these trends, but ultimately the applications will decide how pervasive embedded vision truly becomes—as of today, we’re optimistic.”
ABI Research recently published another report forecasting that between 2015 and 2021 the total amount of VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) shipped would hit 110 million.
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