MUNICH, Germany, Oct. 18, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- At AWE Europe this week, Augumenta, Ltd. announced the immediate availability of Infinite Touch, a toolkit for developers to enable gesture interaction using 3D Time-of-Flight (ToF) cameras in Microsoft HoloLens™ as well as Android™ smartglasses.
The challenge of achieving seamless interaction with mixed or augmented reality (AR) content is an obstacle for developers of industrial and consumer applications. With Infinite Touch, smartglasses equipped with a 3D camera sensor now can be controlled by simply pointing with a finger at virtual objects. This dramatically enhances user experiences by enabling powerful application interfaces with more advanced input capabilities, simple browsing of menu structures, and point and execute functionality.
On Microsoft HoloLens, Infinite Touch uses the built-in ToF 3D camera sensor to go beyond the default gestures made available by Microsoft. For Android devices, Augumenta is working with leading ToF vendor PMDtec to create a bundle consisting of their pico flexx camera module and a mounting bracket for various smartglass models. The first Android device to have this option is the upcoming ODG R-9.
“There’s huge potential in AR for both enterprises and consumers, but one of the things slowing down adoption has been the ability to interact in an intuitive way that requires no learning,” said Tero Aaltonen, co-founder and CEO of Augumenta. “Infinite Touch addresses this problem by providing a powerful and simple interaction method: pointing with a finger. We are looking forward to exciting new application concepts coming out from our partners based on this technology.”
“Infinite Touch opens a new and exciting world for application developers,” comments Tony Manninen, CEO of game studio LudoCraft Ltd. “This newly available technology inspires us to create novel games that are intuitive to control and offer endless possibilities to play with the physical space.”
“We at pmd are proud that Augumenta has selected our development kit pico flexx as their platform for ToF-based hand tracking,” said Mitchell Reifel, VP Business Development and Sales, pmdtechnologies Inc. “The pico flexx is small, inexpensive and easy to use, making it an ideal selection for this use-case. pmd looks forward to working with Augumenta on pico flexx as well as next generation products in the future.”
Augumenta’s Infinite Touch toolkit for HoloLens is available immediately to developers working in the Unity3D environment. Visit www.augumenta.com/hololens for a discounted launch promotion rate until the end of October. A release for Android smartglasses equipped with 3D ToF cameras will become available by end of the year.
This week at the AWE Europe exhibition, Augumenta is demonstrating Infinite Touch in action on HoloLens, with a plane dogfighting demo created by LudoCraft, on booth 302. The company’s enterprise application suite and customers solutions are also available for testing in there.
About Augumenta
Augumenta supplies augmented reality applications and development tools to organizations that use smartglasses. The company’s software enables new ways for smartglass users to monitor and control machine operations, interact with Internet of Things (IoT) devices and control practically any application running on monocular and binocular smartglasses. Headquartered in Oulu, Finland, with a support hub in Taipei, Taiwan, Augumenta licenses its products to global OEMs, enterprise customers, integrators and developers. More than 250 companies have engaged with Augumenta to improve their bottom lines. More information and registration for the company newsletter is here: www.augumenta.com.
HoloLens is a trademark of Microsoft Corp. and Android is a trademark of Google LLC.