Detecting real world barriers

[laurenweinstein1]

Is there a practical method to use signals or cues from the camera to detect and warn (audibly or visually or both) of real world barriers or other hazards -- e.g. walls or other obstacles?

[ChristophGeske]

That's a fantastic idea and I started working on it yesterday. By measuring the distance between detected feature point and head position it should be possible to only show the boundary when coming to close to an object.

[laurenweinstein1]

Excellent! Thanks!

[ChristophGeske]

I added a kind a boundary system that can be turned on with the press of the index finger trigger button.
I did not use the distance to barriers for enabling the boundary detection and instead gave the user the power to turn the feature on and of manually giving him more control.

It's a very simple solution as a first step and there is much that could be improved. For example the point cloud could be stored for longer (right now it only displays the currently detected feature points in the surrounding)

[laurenweinstein1]

Will try this ASAP. Thanks!

[Heath123]

Could you make it work on the Cardboard version and show detected walls, and also only show when you get close to it? I think that would improve it.

[Heath123]

Maybe making the points bigger too would help.

[ChristophGeske]

In this unity talk a good solution is presented which I will try to use for improving the boundary detection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD1gBuVRtZs
@Heath123 your suggestion to show the detected walls only when you get close is good I think that's the way to go and I have some ideas already. Thanks for the suggestion.