Google's Project Tango Smartphone

Google's Project Tango Smartphone launched last month. The objective of Project Tango is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion. The Google team has been working with universities, research labs, and industrial partners spanning nine countries around the world to harvest research from the last decade of work in robotics and computer vision, concentrating that technology into a unique mobile phone.

According to Gartner, worldwide shipments of 3D printers are expected to grow 75 percent in 2014 followed by a near doubling of unit shipments in 2015. While very expensive “additive manufacturing” devices have been around for 20 years, the market for devices ranging from $50,000 to $500, and with commensurate material and build capabilities, is nascent yet growing rapidly. The consumer market hype has made organizations aware of the fact 3D printing is a real, viable and cost-effective means to reduce costs through improved designs, streamlined prototyping and short-run manufacturing.

The current prototype is a 5” phone. Features include customized hardware and software for tracking 3D motion of the device. Tracking is also conducted while simultaneously creating a map of the environment. There are sensors which allow the phone to make over a quarter million 3D measurements every second, updating it’s position and orientation in real-time, combining that data into a single 3D model of the space.

Google’s mobile device runs on Android and includes development APIs to provide position, orientation, and depth data to standard Android applications written in Java, C/C++, as well as the Unity Game Engine. The company also states the early prototypes, algorithms, and APIs are still in active development.They are experimental devices.

Google has worked to comprise early prototypes into the hands of developers that can imagine the possibilities and help bring those ideas into reality. The capabilities of the phone are impressive. The Project Tango Smartphone lets the user capture the dimensions of their home simply by walking around with the phone before you they furniture shopping and more.

About Project Tango

Project Tango is a focused exploration of what might be possible in a mobile platform. It is not part of Android today. We are still in the early days as this technology begins the transition out of research labs into the hands of millions of people. While we may believe we know where this technology will take us, history suggests we that should be humble in our predictions. We are excited to see the effort take shape with each step forward.