LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Students from Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) in Silicon Valley have created an innovative augmented reality application on the Epson® Moverio™ BT-200 smart glasses that features a 3D virtual assistant that interacts with the user and the real-world environment.

The project is the start of collaboration between Carnegie Mellon and Epson to provide graduate students with the tools and guidance needed to create augmented reality applications on the Moverio BT-200 smart glasses.

In the app, a virtual assistant named “Sparky” appears in the user’s field of view to assist with real-time navigation. For example, the user can ask “Sparky” to find a Mexican restaurant nearby and the virtual assistant will locate the restaurant and then lead the user there.

Taking advantage of stereo vision to give the character a sense of depth and reality in the their field of view, users can interact with the character using voice and gestures and have meaningful and fun interactions based on its knowledge of the real-world environment.

“Most current augmented reality technology applications use markers or computer vision to drop static objects or pre-produced animation into the environment. We wanted to explore creating a more natural experience through interacting with a character in the real world,” said John Shields, one of the Carnegie Mellon students working on the project. “The Moverio BT-200 smart glasses allowed us to bring these augmented reality characters to life with their binocular transparent display, gyroscope and other features.”

“The team did an excellent job in creating an augmented reality navigation assistant that also acts as an interactive companion to entertain and engage users,” said Carl Rosendahl, professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “The application offers a glimpse of the future of augmented reality’s role in daily human life.”

The Carnegie Mellon team will be showcasing its application today at the university’s satellite campus, embedded in Electronic Arts (EA) in Redwood City, California.

“The Carnegie Mellon team’s application showcases the unlimited potential of augmented reality on smart glasses,” said Eric Mizufuka, product manager, New Ventures for Epson America. “Their work is a fantastic example of the future of digital overlays and using smart glasses to create meaningful, entertaining and valuable experiences.”

Leveraging Epson’s patented core technologies, the Moverio BT-200 offers an unparalleled binocular smart glasses experience optimized for augmented reality applications. Micro projectors located on each side of the lens project transparent overlays of digital content directly in the user’s field of view over the real-world environment. In addition to the Moverio BT-200’s sensors for head-motion tracking and hands-free navigation, the smart glasses include a front-facing camera for video as well as image capture that detects real-world markers for augmented reality (AR) applications.

The Epson Moverio BT-200 smart glasses are available through select online retailers and direct from Epson for MSRP $699.99. For more information regarding the Moverio Developer Program, please visit the dedicated site here.

To see the Moverio BT-200 in action, visit the official YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/moverio. To engage with the Epson Moverio team on Twitter, visit http://twitter.com/MoverioUSA. For more information, visit www.epson.com/moverio.

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