Measure – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

October 28, 2020

How To Use AR On iPhone 12 Pro To Measure Someone’s Height

The iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max lets users instantly measure someone’s height using AR, thanks to the newly-added LiDAR scanner equipped on the new pro models.

The feature is available in Apple’s Measure app, and uses LiDAR-enhanced AR to measure the height of any person standing in-frame. You can measure to the top of their hat, head or hair, and it even works with people who are sitting down in a chair too.

The feature is only available for the high-end iPhone 12 Pro or 12 Pro Max models. The standard iPhone 12 and the upcoming iPhone 12 Mini do have AR capabilities, but do not include the LiDAR scanner which enhances AR functionality. The omission of the height measuring feature on the standard and mini models suggest that the LiDAR sensor is the missing ingredient on those phones.

iphone ar lidar height measurement

When using the Measure app on a 12 Pro or 12 Pro Max, the feature should work automatically — all you have to do is position the phone’s camera so that the person you’re measuring appears in-frame from head to toe. After that, an AR overlay should soon appear with a line marking the top of the person’s head and their measure height. You can tap the photo button in the bottom right to take a screenshot of the measurement, accessible anytime in your photo library.

With the inclusion of the LiDAR sensor, this measurement feature is just one of many expected advancements for AR on iPhone 12 Pro models. “iPhone 12 Pro uses a LiDAR Scanner to measure how long it takes light to reflect back from objects,” Apple explains on its website. “So it can create a depth map of whatever space you’re in. Because it’s ultrafast and accurate, AR apps can now transform a room into a realistic rainforest or show you how a new sneaker will fit.”

September 13, 2018

Apple Unveil New iPhones X Models – and the A12 Bionic Chip Set To Power Them And ARKit 2 Into The Future

Every time an Apple executive steps on to the stage for a company keynote new iOS powered devices are not that far behind, and the same was true for yesterday’s Apple Special Event, which broadcast from the Steve Jobs Theatre in Cupertino. The company unveiled new iterations of both the Apple watch and the iPhone X – the iPhone XS, the iPhone XS Max and the somewhat confusingly named (at least from the point of view of immersive technology) iPhone XR.

Apple A12 Bionic Powered Apps — A12 Bionic powered apps.

While the XR (pronounced “10 R”) is a budget model, and as mentioned, nothing expressly to do with XR, augmented reality (AR) and Apple’s ARKit 2 platform did come in to discussions for the power behind it and the two XS models, the chip that powers the device is the new A12 Bionic chip.

The A12 Bionic, which features 6.9 billion transistors, a combination of 4-core powered GPU, 6-core powered CPU and a Neural Engine comprised of 8 cores is the world’s first 7nm chip and according to Apple can do 5 trillion operations every second. The A12 Bionic allows the calibration of cameras for AR with accurate motion tracking with its gyro and accelerometer and low-light usage while delivering 60fps bringing with it machine learning.

Apple A12 Bionic

“It’s a huge breakthrough.” Said Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Philip W. Schiller as he introduced the chip. “This A12 Bionic is, without question, the smartest and most powerful chip ever in a smartphone. So much of the experience we have with iPhone is driven by this chip and it’s going to enable us to have so many great new experiences not possible before.”

The expanded screen for the new iPhone X models, has, according to Senior Director of iPhone Product Marketing Kaiann Drance. “turned into a wonderful window to these new AR experiences,” adding that “iPhone XS is the best platform for AR.”

The A12 Bionic looks set to power a new range of deeper and more enhanced AR apps created in ARKit 2, Apple demonstrating the AR Quicklook feature and even namedropping AR app Measure, which first appeared earlier this year at WWDC 18.

Apple Keynote September 2018 - ARKit 2 — ARKit 2 as powered by the A12 Bionic chip.

We can expect a new wave of these enhanced experiences to start dropping after release and VRFocus will let you know when we have news on any of them. For more AR news you can find a link to everything on the site under ‘More’ on the top shortcut bar. Alternatively click here to go directly.

June 25, 2018

Google Launches Its AR Measuring App, Measure

Want to measure how Apple and Google are doing in the AR race? Well you could look to both company’s actual measuring apps, both called Measure.

Whereas Apple’s iteration of this augmented app will be coming with iOS12 (which is rumored to be launching this week), Google has beaten it to the punch by launching its version already. It’s free to download for any Android smartphone that supports Google’s ARCore platform.

Measure uses ARCore’s spatial features to measure real-world objects. By simply pointing your phone’s camera at the given item, you can get a reading of the distance from one corner to the other. You can get readings in imperial and metric units and take photos to bring back up when you’re at IKEA later on.

There’s an important little side-note in the app’s description, though: “Measurements taken within this app are estimates.” Ah.

More than likely this just shuns Google of any responsibility it might have if the app messes up, though we all know ARCore isn’t perfect (and neither is ARKit). We wouldn’t recommend relying on Measure for important tasks, but we’ll definitely be interested to see how accurate it really is.

Tagged with: Measure

The post Google Launches Its AR Measuring App, Measure appeared first on UploadVR.

June 4, 2018

Apple Unveils New App Measure At WWDC 18

How long is a piece of string? Okay that’s somewhat obvious. How about… how deep is a suitcase? Well if you want to be precise about it, a new augmented reality (AR) app coming your way from Apple will be able to tell you.

WWDC 18

Revealed as part of Apple’s presentation into the changes and developments implemented in the forthcoming iOS 12, which also included a brand-new file format for AR, USDZ, which Apple created with the help of Disney’s famous 3D animation studio Pixar. Apple’s Craig Federighi introduced on stage new app Measure, which does exactly as the name suggests.

Using Measure, an Apple iPhone or iPad user is able to drag a line between two specified points, as recognised within the three-dimensional space to give an approximate measurement. The app is, naturally enough, powered by Apple’s own AR developer platform ARKit and the lines and measurements stay ‘on’ the measured objects, allowing additional measurements to be taken. The first iteration of the app can also identify rectangles and show their dimensions.

Measure

It is, of course, not the first instance of an app using the power of AR in order to get an idea as to how long a distance is of objects or the dimensions of the space between them. Regular VRFocus readers might recall another ARKit powered tool called Survey, developed by start-up company DigitalBridge, which came out in October last year. But even as recently as last month a new feature was added to iStaging’s VR Maker app which utilised ARKit and your mobile device’s camera in order to scan the interior or a property to create a set of floor plans. Enabling people to be able to not only have a better idea as to the size of a property, but – for say, an events venue – enable estimations as to its potential capacity. This again operates in essentially the same way.

iStaging Floor Plans — The ARKit powered Floor Plans addition to iStaging’s app, currently in Beta at the time of writing.

Whatever the case, it seems would-be AR users will soon have an ‘official’ option when it comes to measuring things on the Apple Store. VRFocus will bring you more news on the various AR related developments at this year’s WWDC shortly.

June 4, 2018

Measure Is Apple’s Official ARKit App For Measuring Objects

It looks like Apple is getting serious about augmented reality and its ARKit platform at its WWDC event today. Measure is just one way that it’s showing that.

This new app, set to be introduced in the upcoming release of iOS 12, simply uses your iPhone’s camera to, you guessed it, measure objects. By tapping on the corners of a suitcase, for example, your phone can quickly measure its dimensions, though it can also recognize images by itself. Check it out in the images below.

Tagged with: apple, Measure

The post Measure Is Apple’s Official ARKit App For Measuring Objects appeared first on UploadVR.