Tag: Augmented-Reality

Categories
News

Wikitude is among the top 1% rated startups by Early Metrics

Wikitude is among the top 1% rated startups, according to European-based rating agency Early Metrics. As a pioneer in the augmented reality industry, Wikitude was awarded 83 out of 100 points, placing the company in Early Metrics’ prestigious club of five-star startups.

Early Metrics’ ratings, which focus on key non-financial metrics, provide an independent assessment of a venture’ growth potential. The ratings support decision-makers, such as investors and corporations, in identifying and understanding in-depth the most innovative startups across Europe.

Wikitude is the world’s leading independent AR technology provider with a robust ecosystem of over 100,000 registered developers and 20,000 published apps covering a wide variety of industries and use-cases. Its fully in-house developed SDK enables enterprises, agencies, and developers to create powerful AR solutions for mobile devices and smart glasses that delight users and provide tangible ROI.

With the addition of SLAM technology in January 2017, Wikitude’s SDK is the AR market’s most comprehensive developer tool with a combination of location-based, image-based recognition and tracking, and 3D tracking capabilities. Wikitude’s SLAM-based markerless tracking is the most versatile 3D tracking system available for mobile today.

Martin Herdina, CEO at Wikitude, says: “We are delighted by this award. Over $2 billion of investments went into AR/VR in 2016. Being among the top 1% of startups rated by an independent third party shows that we are headed in the right direction in a super exciting market segment. You can expect even more exciting news from Wikitude this year”.

About Wikitude®
Wikitude is the world’s mobile augmented reality (AR) pioneer and leading AR technology provider for smartphones, tablets and digital eyewear on both iOS and Android. Its fully in-house developed AR technology is available through its SDK, Cloud Recognition and Studio products enabling brands, agencies and developers to achieve their AR goals. Wikitude® is a registered trademark of Wikitude GmbH, for more information please visit: www.wikitude.com

About Early Metrics
Early Metrics is the pan-european rating agency for startups and innovative SMEs, analyzing non-financial metrics to assess their growth potential. Ratings are free for entrepreneurs and provide them with a third party assessment, supporting their growth development. Established in London, Paris and Tel Aviv, Early Metrics works on behalf of private and institutional investors as well as corporates ventures and business units. To get rated or to access rating reports: contact@earlymetrics.com

 

Categories
Digital agencies

Roomle makes furniture shopping so much more fun

Let’s face it – despite the bright colors, clever Swedish design, and exceedingly happy salespeople, few of us would actually choose to spend their entire Saturday at IKEA. It’s a chore! But good thing for you – we now practically live in Back to the Future, and augmented reality is, in this case, going to get you to spend less time on life administration by streamlining the time you spend planning, designing, and purchasing furniture for your home.

It’s not only one of the best use cases of AR, it’s also one of the most obvious: planning and designing interior spaces using easy-to-understand visuals – while you stand in the space you’re planning. Of course, IKEA already tried it back in 2013 – but the technology has advanced significantly. Now start-up app Roomle is making the process even easier – using Wikitude’s SLAM 3D tracking.

Check out the short demo below:

The benefits are clear, for everyone involved: less hassle, less travel, quicker and more intuitive understanding of how a space will look and feel. Customers love it because it makes their lives easier; retailers love it because it means more sales, and less overhead on showrooms and stores. And those are just the big benefits – here’s a few more:

  • Real-time supply with up-to-date and individually relevant product information
  • Visualization of residential environments and interior architecture
  • Interactive interface creates strong brand connection
  • The personalization factor is enhanced by the unique usability
  • Simpler presentation of complex products
  • Products ‘stick’ in the consumer’s memory and are recognized more quickly

So what makes Roomle the AR room design app of the future? The stuff behind the scenes. It’s got an incredibly simple user interface – users can jump on the app and start designing rooms and spaces intuitively. In the home, they can simply select a product from the catalogue, and use their phone’s camera to see it in live space. Key here is our SLAM 3D markerless tracking tech – without ‘seeing’ the room, the app wouldn’t be able to place the object in the room to see.

Using Roomle is this easy

Screen shot of roomle app, with 3D white chair overlayed on floor
Roomle is even more impressive in the hands of a trained professional (that’s a nice way of saying ‘salesperson!’). It turns an iPad into a custom furniture showroom. Sales staff can pick furniture from the brand catalog, configure it according to the customer´s preferences and demonstrate the result in convincing 3-D or augmented reality views, live in every room. See the longer explanation about how Roomle works, here.

So now that we’ve arrived at the future, what’s the future of the future? Good question – for one, we can imagine one-click ordering (á la Amazon) combined with the flat-packing genius of IKEA to facilitate home shopping even more – take a picture, pick your product, click ‘purchase’ and it shows up at your door one day later. What follows? Pre-fabbed house construction – calculate the price of a new floor or painting a room, or installing an addition to your home.

If you’ve been thinking about making some changes around the house, but the hassle of getting out the measuring tape, doing the research, and going shopping has been holding you back – wait no more, give Roomle a try!

Roomle is powered by Wikitude. Get started with the Wikitude SDK today!

Categories
SDK releases

Product update: Wikitude Studio and Wikitude App

It’s been a long ride since we first launched the Wikitude App, the world’s first AR mobile app, and Wikitude Studio, the easiest AR content management tool in the market. With the launch of our SDK 6 Wikitude started a new chapter in its history, focusing on the development of powerful tools for developers to create their own augmented reality apps in a single platform.

This blog post aims to share important dates and details related to the upcoming changes in the Wikitude product suite in accordance with our Terms and Services. This information comes ahead of time so our community can have enough time to plan for the upcoming changes. 

Wikitude is terminating Wikitude Studio (studio.wikitude.com) and replacing it by our newly developed Studio Editor. Additionally, Wikitude will terminate support for geo-worlds hosted in the Wikitude App. 

Our team has been building the new generation AR content management tool, called Studio Editor, that will continue to provide the same features you loved in Wikitude Studio. Studio Editor is now available for free trial. Exact migration instructions and actions to be taken will follow via email to all customers within the next weeks.


Migration & hosting 
  • Automatic migration of AR experiences from Wikitude Studio to Studio Editor will be provided for all customers later this year. 

  • AR experiences hosted in Wikitude Studio will be upgraded for compatibility with Studio Editor. 

Important dates (in chronological order) 

  • Customers using Wikitude Studio hosting in combination with a SDK version lower than 4.1, should contact our team for further information latest by 2017-03-30.

  • Wikitude Studio will export worlds only in SDK 4.1 or higher version starting 2017-04-04 (if you use the Wikitude App as publishing channel, this does not affect you). 

  • The Wikitude Studio (studio.wikitude.com) will be discontinued from 2017-09-30 onwards. 

  • After 2017-09-30 AR experiences hosted in Wikitude Studio will not be editable (read-only). 

  • Geo-Worlds in the Wikitude App will not be available after 2017-09-30. 

  • Existing tools offering ‘Publish in Wikitude’ feature will not be available after 2017-09-30 except for upcoming the new features in Studio Editor. 

  • AR experiences hosted in Wikitude Studio will be deleted after 2017-12-31.

Wikitude is committed to creating powerful tools that allow anyone to build ultimate AR experiences in just a few clicks. 

Should you have any doubts please don’t hesitate to contact our team on the email sales@wikitude.com.

The Wikitude Team

Categories
SDK releases

Android 7.0 and iOS 10 – Our Augmented Reality SDK is Ready!

Update (August 2017): Object recognition, multi-target tracking and SLAM based instant tracking: Track the world with SDK 7

In the past weeks our development team has been digging deep into public beta versions of the new iOS 10 and Android 7.0 Nougat. With yesterday’s official release of Android’s new version of the OS, we wanted to make a quick summary for our dev community of the main changes and let you know we have an SDK update coming up soon.

So starting with the good news: our augmented reality SDK is ready for both Android 7.0 and iOS 10 changes! We are happy to announce we are in final stages of building our upcoming SDK 5.3, that will be fully compatible with both operating systems.

Android 7.0 Nougat

Android 7.0 Nougat was released yesterday, slightly ahead of schedule, and it came with a couple of new features that got us, AR developers, excited. Here are our highlights:

  • Vulkan API support – when it comes to 3D rendering APIs, Vulkan is an awesome-to-have. This is a low level API that gives direct access of the GPU to developers, allowing high-performance 3D graphics like we’ve never seen before. So get ready for some eye-candy AR games!
  • New JIT (Just in Time) compiler – this will allow faster compilation and reduce the size of apps. Improved performance by this new compiler will make the building process of Android-based AR apps much faster and intuitive.Android-Nougat (1)
  • Doze battery saver – introduced already on Marshmallow last year, Doze is Android’s battery-saving feature that shuts apps down once you are done with them. No real news here, but the more battery we have for AR experiences, the better!
  • VR mode – coming later this year, Nougat will make apps VR-friendly with their Daydream, Google’s upcoming VR platform.
  • Window split mode: Apps based on Android 7.0 can make use of the new split screen feature.
Right now, Nougat is only available for recent Nexus device owners (Nexus 6, 6P, 5X, Pixel C, or Nexus 9 tablet). For everyone else, there’s still some waiting time ahead for the over-the-air update.
To summarize: overall this update will bring more opportunities to build faster nice looking AR experiences in less “heavy” apps.

A word on iOS 10

You probably have heard that Apple is working on some kind of AR project behind the scenes and that we can expect something awesome some time in the future. Tim Cook himself confirmed that AR is “…extremely interesting and sort of a core technology”. Self-driving cars or AR headset, fact is Apple’s new iOS 10 doesn’t give us much to what direction the company is going with this technology.

Apple’s new OS, just like Google’s, revolves around improved messaging systems, new emojis, heavy machine learning for images and building a smarter home with IoT. Also, making Siri accessible through apps, which is kind of neat if you would ask us.

Apple's CEO - Tim Cook
Rumor has it that iOS 10 will be officially released in about a month. Several public beta version have been around since the beginning July and our team has explored it inside out. So far, no sign of any feature that will make AR devs be on cloud 9. 

Wikitude SDK 5.3

We’re excited about the new features Android Nougat and iOS 10 bring and can’t wait to reveal our fully compatible Wikitude SDK 5.3 in the next days. The release will be available for Wikitude SDK JavaScript API, Native API and all extensions including Unity. The later will see some more features as well.
What you can expect? Improved performance, faster building time for your AR apps and an awesome new feature to those already working with our Plugins API feature.

Download Wikitude SDK

Categories
Dev to Dev

Migrating from Moodstocks: here’s how to keep your app online

The augmented reality industry is on fire these past weeks:

  • Snapchat has quietly introduced a whole new world of augmented reality right in our hands
  • Pokémon Go’s AR game added $7.5 billion to Nintendo’s market value
  • and just last week Moodstocks, French image recognition startup, was bought by Google

As pioneers in the field, Wikitude couldn’t be more excited with all the attention (and actual usage) augmented reality has gotten in the past week. In fact, there was an increase of 417% on Google searches for the term “augmented reality” in the past week.

Google 'augmented reality' search results

About 1 year ago, the industry experienced a similar hype when Apple bought Metaio. Back then, our team helped hundreds of developers and agencies to migrate their apps to Wikitude. This time around, it won’t be different: we’re here to help Moodstocks-based apps to keep running smoothly and make a switch in just a few steps!

Image Recognition and Tracking, Geo-based AR, Cloud Recognition Services and content management system: Wikitude offer a full stack of products to build incredible AR apps in no time! 

Wikitude SDK

The Wikitude SDK is the core of our augmented reality solution set. It provides developers with a powerful SLAM rendering engine for mobile apps and smart glasses.

The latest version of the Wikitude SDK includes all the features (and more) to keep your Moodstocks app amazing your users. Here’s a list of all features:

  • Geo-based AR
  • Image recognition and tracking
  • Object recognition and tracking
  • Instant tracking
  • Extended image tracking
  • 3D modeling and presentation layers
  • 3D tracking for Unity SDK

This means you can overlay digital content on 2D images on planar (magazines, catalogues, billboard, TV/computer screens) and non-planar surfaces (product packaging, images places on objects, etc), stick the augmentation on the user’s screen and even include location-based AR (just like the Pokémon Go app does).

Why Wikitude?

  • You can build your own white-label app from scratch or include the SDK in an existing app.
  • We have a sample app which you can use for base of your project and to test all features included in the SDK.
  • Our set up guides are quick and easy!
  • Choose among several development platforms and programming languages to build your app, such as JavaScript, Unity, Xamarin, PhoneGap, Titanium, JavaScript, native iOS and Android.
  • With Wikitude you have the freedom to choose between On-Device Recognition (offline, aka client recognition), Cloud Image Recognition (online) or a ‘hybrid’(online-offline) alternative.
  • Using the Wikitude Cloud recognition will allow you to add, replace or remove images without republishing your app.
  • Manage your AR content with the Wikitude Studio/Target manager.

And a few more things:

  • Stable technology: we are pioneers in the AR industry, first launching our AR SDK in 2009;
  • 100% in-house API: our technology is robust, fast and precise, fully developed by our highly qualified R&D team;
  • Fast and scalable: recognize 2D targets in less than a second (current speed: 0,5 secs). You can upload up to 50,000 images in our cloud, but if you need more, just let us know;
  • Trusted by global brands: Wikitude is the largest independent AR SDK provider in the market. MasterCard, Johnson & Johnson, Volkswagen, Cisco, SAP, Konica Minolta, 20 Fox Century are some of the hundreds of Global brands using our technology;
  • Smart glasses: our SDK is optimized for the industries top AR smart glasses for hands-free experiences;
  • Best support team: we hear this every day and are proud of it! We’re here for you.

How to migrate from Moodstocks to Wikitude:

Don’t be shy, if you have any questions or need help, reach out to info@wikitude.com anytime!

Download Free Trial

Categories
Dev to Dev

Build the next Pokémon Go with Wikitude’s SDK 5.2

Wikitude SDK 5.2 - build the next Pokemon Go

Update (August 2017): Object recognition, multi-target tracking and SLAM: Track the world with SDK 7

Are you working on building the next Pokémon Go? Wikitude can help make that a whole lot easier! Geo location, image recognition, and on-screen interactives – all right here for the taking. The next version of our industry-leading augmented reality SDK is out – and it’s got a few upgrades we think developers need to know about.

So if you’ve got the next smash-hit app for AR, hop on board – we’ve got the tools you need to build them.

Build your own Pokémon Go!

The Wikitude app was the first publicly available app that used a location-based approach to augmented reality, already in 2008. If you are ready to build the next Pokémon Go app, all you have to do is check out our Geo-based AR feature included in the Wikitude SDK.

pokemon-go-nick_statt-screenshots-1.0

Image credits: The Verge

With a few lines of code you can build awesome AR games that will not only augment Snorlax, Bulbasaur and Pikachu, but any 3D model of your favorite creature, along with videos, augmented buttons, html widgets and more! 

Here’s how to build an app like Pokémon Go with Wikitude:

(Don’t be shy, if you have any questions or need help, reach out to info@wikitude.com anytime!)

New “Camera control feature” (Input Plugins)

This new feature (Camera Input Plugins) allows developers to feed the Wikitude SDK with their own input images and manage the camera stream on their own, making the SDK more flexible where it receives camera images from.
It’s an extension of our existing Plugins API feature, introduced in the SDK 5. The SDK comes with an extensive sample “Custom Camera” that demonstrates the feature with a custom rendered camera image using a shader for a scanning effect.

Camera Input Plugins

This new camera input feature also not only lets the user to provide input from different cameras to the SDK, but it doesn’t “occupy” the camera while the SDK is running, letting you multitask while other things while the SDK is running.

Making Unity better (and easier)

Our most popular plugin was updated to make product visualization even better!

We made some essential changes to the camera prefab (set up), which has been simplified in its structure. The hierarchy it previously had is now a single GameObject, making it easier to combine the prefab with other Unity objects and features, like physics engine. Most of all, your 3D content will no longer stand alone in your AR experiences!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VEkSZEO-jU

You will be able to insert shadows, change texture on 3D models, make objects interact with each other and drag and drop several objects in the AR experience.

So whether you are building interactive augmented reality catalogues, like IKEA’s, or awesome AR games, get started today with our updated Unity extension.

Download SDK 7.0

Categories
Dev to Dev

Wikitude Cloud Recognition: Scalable and 10% Faster

In the past days we silently rolled out an upgrade to our cloud services for all customers. The update focused on bringing the components and infrastructure we are using in our Cloud Services up to the latest versions. The database infrastructure used in our Cloud Services played a crucial role, where we upgraded to the latest MongoDB version.

This upgrade, beside all the security and stability fixes you get out of it, also resulted in an performance improvement of average 10%, meaning the cloud services can handle more parallel requests and traffic.

Additionally we fixed a few UI glitches and bugs – particularly when uploading a higher number of images at the same time (>300). The new Wikitude Studio updated its duplicate check for better recognition in case you are uploading an identical image.

Generating WTC files

Wikitude Studio is the easiest and fastest way to generate wtc files, the file format recognized by the Wikitude SDK. Whether you are working with you own CMS or with a large amount of images directly in the cloud, you can use this service to automatize the generation of wtc files in just a few clicks.

If you still haven’t tried the Wikitude Studio including Cloud Recognition and the web-based Editor, get a free trial today at your developer license page. For optimal performance, Wikitude has distributed servers across the planet: Europe, Americas and China. To learn more check out our documentation section.

 

Get Free Trial

 

Categories
News

Augmented World Expo 2016 was the biggest and best AR event ever – and here’s why

Couldn’t make it to Santa Clara for AWE 2016? Take five minutes to find out what you missed.

The biggest Augmented Reality event in the world has come and gone for 2016 – and there’s a whole lot to talk about for anyone interested in seeing the future. Wikitude was onsite to demonstrate its latest technology advancements– and of course, see what everyone else in the AR/VR/wearable industry was up to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16KPWVPcDi0&feature=youtu.be

Show me the money

The first thing you noticed? Money. Not literally – but lurking quietly below the surface. Booths were bigger, presentations were slicker, and everything and everyone was more professional. It’s a sign that people in the know are putting investments on the line – with full expectations of real returns. We’ve had our first glimpses of the future – and it’s one full of possibilities for the AR world. Of course, that was also reflected in another metric – people. Says Wikitude’s Phillipp Nagele: “There was just so much more happening this year! I think the show must have doubled in size since last year.”

Interactivity is evolving

The layman thinks of AR as a new way to consume content or information about the world – but what some of the visionaries in the field are most excited about it how it will change the ways we interface with computers. The computer has always required a tactile interaction. Keyboards and mice have evolved to touch screens, but what’s next? The answer: nothing. Augmented reality devices will let our fingers, hands and eyes interact with digital images in ways never seen before. Check out ODG’s R-7 smartglasses – for which we’ve designed an optimized version of the Wikitude SDK. It will help you make sure AR scenarios now work flawlessly on the ODG hardware. Read the official ODG / Wikitude partnership announcement.

We made a scene at the Auggies

The Oscars to the film industry is what the Auggies are to the AR industry. Not only was Wikitude a finalist in the Best AR Tool category, WIkitude also stole the show by augmenting the Auggie this year – yep, we augmented the Auggie. After all, it makes sense, right? Watch Ori Inbar, Founder and CEO of Augmented World Expo live on stage during the keynote and Auggie Awards ceremony.

See what we had to show off

For the people that work behind the scene on AR apps, Wikitude had plenty to offer from CTO Philipp Nagele – most importantly, technical insight and an in-depth tutorial on our SDK, plus an exploration of the various complimentary and powerful tools WIkitude offers including Studio, Cloud Recognition and the plugins API, which let’s the Wikitude SDK work with other libraries to create powerful, custom-built apps with features like QR and barcode recognition as well as OCR.

CEO Martin Herdina discussed one of the most important issues for everyone in the AR space: 3D recognition and tracking of objects, rooms, spaces, and structures. With the discipline still very much in its infancy, Herdina offered rare bits of real-word experience on best practices with devices already in the market.

And, in the parlance of the film industry – that’s a wrap. AWE 2016 was an incredible event highly indicative of an incredible future. What will be talking about next year? Whatever it is, it’s surely going to be even more exciting. See you in the new future!

Categories
SDK releases

Unity Plugin Update – 3D tracking, new sample app and more!

Update (August 2017): A developer insight into Wikitde SDK 7 – Object recognition, multi-target tracking and SLAM based instant tracking

The Wikitude development team has just released an update to our Unity plugin!

Being Wikitude’s #1 plugin since its first release, this upgrade adds a number of cool features to our native SDK, including the long-awaited 3D tracking and a new sample app!

So here it is, the new Unity plugin 1.2.1-1.1.0 (read: Plugin version 1.1.0 including Wikitude SDK 1.2.1) is now available for download and free trial to our developer community!

What’s new?

  • Upgrade to Wikitude SDK (Native API) 1.2.1
  • 3D Tracking
  • Extended Tracking quality indicator
  • Camera Controls (back/front camera)
  • Callbacks are now Unity Events
  • New Unity Plugin Reference included
  • Improved and extended documentation
  • New Unity based sample app for Android and iOS
  • Several bug fixes and stability improvements

Note that due to the changes the upgrade requires some migration steps to be followed. A step-by-step migration guide is available to upgrade your Unity-based apps!

The update is free for all existing Unity Plugin users and available for Android and iOS apps.

To see the full release notes and set up guide check out the Unity documentation section.

Download Unity SDK

 

Categories
News

We humans see the world in 3D – now Wikitude does, too.

This week is very exciting as the Augmented World Expo will open its doors to “everything AR”. The event in Santa Clara, California, is definitely the most important gathering of the year for us, which is why we have chosen to share more details of our SDK product roadmap with you today.

3D computer vision coming in September

In addition to our already announced and feature packed Wikitude SDK 5.0 a couple of weeks ago, we are announcing today that we will add 3D recognition and tracking capabilities to our SDK package in September. To make the waiting a bit more pleasant, we have produced this video to show you our focus on rooms, spaces and environments both indoors and outdoors.

[responsive_vid]

Rooms, Spaces, Environments – Indoor and Outdoor

As stated in my interview with Tom Emrich last month, it is a natural progression for Wikitude to move from 2D image recognition to 3D recognition and tracking of the real world. Our 2D capabilities are very mature and have been perfected to a high degree of performance and reliability, much to the appraisal of our customers building solutions that are based on augmenting 2D surfaces, such as in theScreen Shot 2015-06-05 at 17.07.22 advertising and printing industries. But the world is more than 2D surfaces, it consists of 3D spaces, rooms and environments, literally everywhere we look. As the video shows, our technology recognizes, maps and “understands” rooms to for example place digital furniture into it or to navigate through an unknown building. It allows you to create immersive entertainment in outdoor spaces, which has the potential to reinvent game play and the production of mixed reality film. Beyond the consumption of digital content in the real world, Wikitude’s 3D tracking will allow you to create your very own digitally augmented spaces. You can come up with your wildest ideas on how to design the world around you, wether it is visualizing your private house on a plot of land or perhaps a new factory, to give an example for a more enterprised application.

Our focus on technology and technology only

Computer vision is Wikitude’s DNA. Our dedicated team works day and night to build powerfulScreen Shot 2015-06-05 at 17.06.40 features for our augmented reality SDK. We do this for developers, visionaries and innovation managers with a dream, project or concept to build valuable apps for consumers, enterprise or both. Our mission is to build technology enabling YOU to “augment the world” so we can all see more than we normally could.

Meet us this week

Are you near San Francisco this week? If you want to learn more about Wikitude’s technology and speak to our team directly, come join us for these two events:

Augmented World Expo from 8-10 June in Santa Clara, our booth number is #70, right at the entrance of the exhibition area.

Sign up to “Learn about Wikitude’s AR SDK and tools” at this meetup in San Francisco on June 10th at 6:30pm.

I am looking forward too seeing you all in California this week, hope you can make it!

Andy Gstoll – Wikitude CMO