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Smartphones are an insanely impressive, continuously-evolving piece of technology – they’ve gone beyond video calls, gaming, and internet browsing, and are now being used for more advanced purposes. In particular, KIRI Innovations – a Shenzhen based company – is making use of Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) technology to develop new advancements in photo-realistic 3D scanning and imaging technology using mobile phone hardware.
NeRF on Smartphones
With that said, the KIRI Innovations team has announced that it is bringing NeRF to Android phones and iPhones with or without LiDAR. Using the KIRI Engine app, KIRI has made 3D scanning options available for non-LiDAR users, the likes of which are often absent on mobile devices due to the challenges involved with developing apps for such purposes, given the diversity of Android devices across different markets and manufacturers.
Using NeRF technology, users will be able to render realistic 3D imagery that can be viewed from different angles by scanning an object or environment using their mobile devices. Since it’s easy to use, it offers enormous potential in fields that benefit from photo-realistic 3D visualizations like educational content, medical research, tourism, gaming, and more.
Peter Yang, KIRI Innovations co-founder, describes NeRF as “an algorithm that retrieves paths of light and represents how they are bounced off of surfaces, to translate them into a complex, highly detailed and realistic 3D scene.” Additionally, co-founder and CEO Jack Wang says that “it might take a bit of time for people to grasp and adopt NeRF. But once it’s understood, I don’t think anyone, including ourselves, is ready for what NeRF will unlock. This is super exciting, we can’t wait to see what people do with this tech available on their phones!”
With the app, KIRI is aiming to give users a freemium pricing structure, without paywalls on specific file formats, zero watermarks, and free access to most of the app’s features like in-app cropping and “Camera pose.” At the moment, the app is under development, although KIRI is planning to demo its software – particularly its NeRF scanning workflow – during CES 2023.
“Camera Pose” for nerfstudio
At the moment, KIRI Innovations has launched its new “Camera Pose” software to export NeRF-ready data to nerfstudio, its open-source API was developed by researchers and contributors who have been working on NeRF since 2020. Camera pose is also currently the first and only option for smartphones that does not require LiDAR, and is currently the only option for all Android and iPhones (iOS 13 and up) that can record 1080p video. In addition, its data can be processed about twice as fast as the data from current, free PC-based options.
Like many of the KIRI Engine 3D scanning app’s features, Camera Pose is freely available to all users with a KIRI Engine account. The goal is to empower more researchers, content creators, students, and enthusiasts to explore and learn more about NeRF technology and its potential for future applications.
The KIRI Engine 3D scanner is available for download on the Google Play Store and iOS App Store.
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