Device positioning via Augmented Reality

Detect 3D position of other mobile devices via Augmented Reality

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Detect 3D position of other mobile devices via Augmented Reality

Assess ARCore capabilities by solving this problem.

Solution

Cloud Anchors

We place a cloud anchor on a plane and detect it on all devices. If it is properly detected, the cloud anchor has the same real world position, rotation and scale on all devices. Once the anchor is detected, each phone computes it’s position in the local space of the anchor and sends it to the other phones.

Point cloud

ARCore periodically manages a point cloud to detect planes. We collect points from this point cloud over a period of time. We then export these points in an inhouse tool and compared point clouds from multiple devices. The idea is to find a transformation matrix that would make the two point clouds overlap and then use it to convert world positions from one phone’s coordinate space to another. Since the first solution gives decent results we decided not to continue this investigation.