About the project
Project Vision
Spatial computing is a broad term for a suite of technologies that result in users being immersed, engaged, and interacting with spatial and temporal digital information that pertains to the physical space in, around, and near the user. It consists of a superset of technologies required for traditional Augmented Reality. Figure 1 introduces the concept and the most important terminology.
Spatial computing relies on a number of fundamental technologies such as real-world 3D capture (sparse and dense point cloud mapping), precise localization with six degrees of freedom, and discovery and delivery of personalized content to users. Today, these building blocks are only available from and controlled by a few major companies (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, etc) in siloed platforms.
The Open AR Cloud (OARC) association is dedicated to the development of technologies and standards for open and interoperable spatial computing components on which an ecosystem of companies and their services can flourish. The OARC has already designed and implemented prototypes of important building blocks of an Open Spatial Computing Platform (OSCP), shown in Figure 2. The OARC has released the components as open-source code (see https://github.com/OpenArCloud) and these are already deployed in an OARC testbed in Bari, Italy.
The existing OARC testbed has proven that the OSCP enables discovery of spatial services, localization of users based on images sent from the user’s mobile camera, discovery of digital multimedia content attached to physical locations or smart objects and sensors, and display of content to test bed-connected users. Based on personalized user preferences, location, and other context information, the retrieved content can be dynamically filtered.
With support of the NGI Atlantic program, the Open AR Cloud (OARC) Europe team is adapting the reference implementation of the OSCP and deploying the components on the COSMOS 5G platform in Manhattan. In addition, the team creates a new Unity-based reference client application and two representative demo applications. The team is also working on integrating a new, open-source Visual Positioning Service developed by George Mason University.
The COSMOS 5G deployment of the OSCP will allow conducting experiments that will deepen understanding of limitations and opportunities of the OSCP, provide component and network performance metrics, and trigger development of new software to increase the capabilities and features of the OSCP. The integration with an open-source VPS will permit any provider