Augmented reality is a remarkable technology that I can definitely see playing a vital part in our future. Outside of certain medical uses though, it has yet to really find that killer app or game to drive the technology into the mainstream. However, that could be changing based on a recent demo shows by developer Cyril Diagne, who has shown how AR can be used to cut and paste real-world object and paste them into digital documents. Yes, that’s right, forget needing to take a picture, send it to your computer and then involve some complex photoshopping to get that picture in. Just take a picture of an actual object with your phone and it can then be pasted into another document in what can only best be described as magic.
Diagne does at least go into some detail in his twitter thread where he revealed this tool, about how his magic code works. One component separates the foreground object from the background with machine learning, while another detects where your phone is pointing at your computer screen to play the image correctly Diagne says it takes about 2.5 seconds to copy an object and four seconds to paste it, but that could be easily sped up.
Diagne is a man of his word, as he has put his code up on GitHub for the world to see exactly how he does it and help to improve it along the way, enhancing its performance and perhaps ironing out the rough edges.
The technology is still in the prototype phase for now, but it’s already clearly evident at how this sort of tool could be used in the real world and it will no doubt be getting attention from the bigger companies who will be looking to utilise it. Let’s hope they can give Diagne some decent cash or a job for what is easily the best use of AR I have ever seen and something I never knew I needed until now.
Last Updated: May 5, 2020
