New feature on Envision AI: Scan & Find

Hi All,

This is Karthik from Envision. Last week we launched a new experimental feature within the Envision AI app called Scan & Find. The idea behind this feature is to help users find people and objects in real-time using a video feed. It currently works as follows:

Within the Envision AI app, you find a new tab called Scan & Find (in addition to Text, General and Help that already existed). Within the tab, you find three buttons: Scan Custom Objects, Scan Common Objects and Teach Faces and Objects.

The "Teach Faces and Objects" function works very similar to our previous flow of teaching things. You need to take 5 to 10 images of the person or the object you are trying to teach, preferably with different angles and background. The teaching for the object currently takes a little longer than faces, so you will need to be a little patient. We are working on making that faster.

Once the teaching is done, you can press the "Scan Custom Objects" button and start scanning your phone around and it will speak out whenever a trained object or a face is in the frame. It currently does not provide information on position and distance of the object or face, but we plan to implement that soon. We believe this function could be useful in situations like looking for your keys on a table, where you can just scan the table area with your phone and it can give you real-time inputs like "Looks like your keys in the top right corner". Or if you are at a cafe and looking for a friend, just scan with your phone and as soon as the camera sees their face it can provide output like "Looks like Alex in the top left corner 3 feet away".

Lastly, the Scan Common Objects gives you an idea of how this works and can recognise a range of limited common objects like cups, table, etc.

We will like you to give it a try and let us know what your experiences, thoughts and ideas about this feature are. We are still in the early stages of improving it so your feedback will be super helpful.

And while you are at it, feel free to test out the rest of the app if you haven't already and send any feedback you have our way. If you have any queries or clarifications, I will be here to answer them.

Here's the link to the app on the AppStore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/envision-ai/id1268632314

P.S. We are doing a Facebook Live event this Sunday at 7 PM Amsterdam Time where we will be speaking about our development process and taking your questions as well. So if you will like to join that you can do so at this link here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2115395335446193/