First things first, we must understand how Augmented Reality works. Augmented Reality uses cameras and depth sensors to understand and map the physical world. These cameras use images to track our location in the room which is known as localization. SLAM stands for “simultaneous localization and mapping” which is the continuous act of mapping the environment. Depth sensors play a large role in how AR objects can interact with the physical world by calculating the distance of pixels between real world objects. Unfortunately, I am only supplied with an iPhone which does not have rear facing depth censors. The front camera however, uses a TrueDepth camera that projects invisible infrared dots on the skin to map facial features for the phone’s facecam scanner. This TrueDepth camera would be useful if I am scanning faces but for this project, I will be scanning tattoos. With this information, I believe I can still use the iPhone rear camera because I will be localizing 2D images instead of a 3D physical environment.
As for researching apps, I have found a popular AR Tattoo app where users can “try before they buy” tattoos. InkHunters allows users to select a tattoo from a database of designs and places it at a marked location on the skin. Users can use a pen to draw three lines on their desired tattoo location and the camera will display the design. Users can also upload their own pictures to test out in Augmented Reality. I downloaded the app and gave it a try. I found that after taking the image, the app implements a slider to raise or lower the contrast of the image to try and make it as black/white as possible so it is easy to project the image onto the desired location. Based on my previous research about image recognition, I can understand that this app uses those three lines as a trigger image to place the tattoos. How does this apply to my project? The difference between how InkHunters works and how I plan to develop my project is that I will be using the tattoos themselves as trigger images. This means that users will take a picture of their tattoo and save it to a gallery for the camera to recognize. Downloading and testing InkHunters has given me a small direction towards how I want my app to work.