Computer Vision and Augmented Reality in Retail

Computer vision and augmented reality: sometimes it pays to look at the world through a screen

Watching the world through a screen sometimes pays: vision systems or Computer Vision (CV) in combination with Augmented Reality (AR) are finding interesting application in retail environments.

Vision systems allow real-time interpretation of the image a smartphone or other devices (e.g. the palmtop used for store activity management) is framing, thanks to the possibility of recognizing a certain type of object, shape (e.g. a barcode or QR code) or text (the price on a label). This is true not just for one object at a time, like our brain could do, but simultaneously for tens of items inside our visual field.

Augmented Reality systems allow real-time overlapping of additional information, precious for the user’s activity, to the scene we are framing via smartphone or other devices.

What are we working on?

Two applicative examples we are working on are:

• in store management environment: more efficient management of store operations, thanks to the possibility of framing display racks and carrying out fast inventories or verifying price correspondence of a set of products with the one indicated on the shelves, by simply focusing it and letting our app work

• in consumer environment: proposing final consumers captivating digital experiences, like for example controlling food composition or visualizing online reviews for a given product, by simply framing it