Augmented Reality Comes To Google Glass Via OpenGlass Project

Google Glass’ destiny is surely augmented reality--wherein the user looking through Google Glass sees extra data when viewing objects such as buildings or signs--and the OpenGlass project is already pushing towards that end.

The brainchild of graduate students Brandyn White and Andrew Miller, OpenGlass is a library for Google Glass (available on GitHub), and the duo demonstrated how the spectacles can be used for augmented reality. In a video, they showed how a user could look at the Washington Monument and see how tall it is; or look at a sign and view the Spanish translation; or look at a restaurant and see if it’s closed or open, as well as how many stars it has.


The technique involves an image captured by Google Glass being rectified and displayed over the original object. The rectification process is handled by Picarus, which the guys also created, and then an annotator adds data, which the user sees.


Obviously, both the process and the results are rudimentary and a little rough, but the idea is a great one. Let’s hope White and Miller take this concept to a more refined level as soon as possible.