Phones to offer X-ray vision

Lost in a big city? It is a familiar experience. So imagine if you could use X-ray vision to see what was on the other side of the building in front of you.

It sounds like science fiction, but researchers at the University of South Australia have developed mobile phone software that can achieve just that.

Christian Sandor explained the application worked by using the phone's camera. Users pointed the camera at a building and an image of it would appear on the screen. Then, the image would change to show what was behind the building, as if it was no longer there.

The technology, known as augmented reality, appears to be X-ray vision, but in reality it uses pictures and images that already exist in databases such as Google Earth and Google Streetview.

The application needs two pieces of information: a 3D model of the area or city the phone user is in and the user's exact position.

A 3D model of a city could be built using information collected from aerial surveys, Dr Sandor said.

Survey planes capture the shape and size of the buildings in a city.

That data is merged with images from databases to complete the 3D model.

GPS is used to work out the user's exact position. Once the software knows this information, it uses information and images from the 3D model to display a picture of what is behind the building.

Dr Sandor said the technology could not be used by peeping Toms to see into people's houses because only the exterior views of buildings and streets were held in the databases.

He said the research group was working with Nokia to build an ''X-ray vision'' mobile phone application, which it hoped could be introduced in the next two years.

Augmented reality technologies had only become possible in the last 10 years, Dr Sandor said, because of the development of sophisticated networks such as Google Earth and Streetview.

As well as X-ray vision, the research team has developed two other types of mobile phone applications called Meltvision and Distortvision.

Meltvision works using a similar process to the X-ray vision application, but the image of the front of the building ''melts away'' to reveal what is behind.

Distortvision alters the mobile video image so that objects out of the line of sight can be ''bent'' into vision.

- © Fairfax NZ News