Google Tango Device Support for Sensor Collection Project for Augmented Reality Implementation

PTC announced that its augmented reality (AR) development software Vuforia platform will support Tango devices, which feature Google's sensor aggregation technology.

The Vuforia AR platform facilitates the application of digital content to real-world environments. Most AR content currently being produced focuses on specific objects, such as toys, catalogs, and machine parts. However, AR content that focuses solely on specific objects without considering surrounding context, such as terrain, surface areas, furniture, and various equipment, has limited interactivity, making it difficult to provide a comprehensive, room-scale AR experience.

Vuforia's Smart Terrain feature addresses these challenges by enabling developers to easily leverage real-world physical environments. Vuforia's Smart Terrain feature provides a hierarchical structure of objects and surfaces in the form of a scene graph optimized for AR development. Developers can dynamically generate a scene graph that reflects their surroundings, including custom objects and reconfigured objects and surfaces to reflect the surrounding environment. For example, when creating a toy, you can simulate how it would be played with by considering the furniture arrangement in a real child's room.


Smart Terrain technology was first unveiled in 2014 and was initially designed to leverage next-generation depth-sensing camera technology. The Lenovo Phab2 and ASUS ZenFone AR were the first commercially available smartphones to feature this feature, and have been praised for revolutionizing the AR experience.

“By supporting Tango in Vuforia, we’re enabling more developers to leverage our Smart Terrain technology to experience the benefits of enhanced AR and 3D reconstruction,” said Eitan Marder Eppstein, Engineering Manager at Google.

Vuforia Smart Terrain technology empowers developers and designers to explore deeper creative capabilities by depicting geometric environmental elements while reflecting semantic environmental elements over time.

Jay Wright, CEO of PTC Vuforia, said, "Vuforia Smart Terrain is a technology that can amplify the potential value of devices equipped with 3D camera technology. AR developers will be able to experience a truly differentiated creative realm, and the resulting results will be a testament to this innovation."