UPDATED IDEA: Object Recognition and Tracking for Augmented Reality

While exploring more about Augmented Reality and AR-based applications currently circulating on the internet, I have seen limitations of Augmented Reality, especially in object recognition and tracking. I would like to see the current status of the capability of object recognition and tracking technologies available and how we can improve them. If possible, I want to push further so that markerless augmented reality can be less complex and frustrating and we do not have to rely heavily on markers anymore.

Idea 1: Educational/Fun Augmented Reality Application

Seeing and interacting with digital creations of your favorite characters in reality would sound like an unrealistic fantasy but, thanks to the rapidly advancing realm of technology, we can bring our imaginations into reality now. I would like to make an educational yet fun application targeted to kids but the idea is not limited to only kids or education. The application allows the user to explore his/her surroundings and interact with the objects by using any devices that can do AR. The application should recognize the object or a part of an object and create an overlay which the user can interact with.

Idea 2: Facial/Image Recognition (Computer Vision) and Algorithms Behind it

While neurologists and other scientists are debating whether the ability to recognize is an innate ability, facial/image recognition has been an easy task for humans. It is so easy that we are not even aware of the fact that we can operate because we can recognize stuffs. However, it is still difficult for computers to perform this task. I think this part would be challenging in perfecting my idea 1 and I would like to spend time researching how we make computers recognize faces or objects under different circumstances.

Idea 3: Schedule Planner

At the beginning of every semester, the supervisor of libraries has to make a work schedule that works around the student workers’ timetable and it is a very tedious process. I want to come up with a software or at least an algorithm that would take in students’ varied timetable and build a schedule that makes everyone happy.