Take Advantage Of Google's Augmented Reality Technology To Show The Ideal Distance Of Social Barriers

Google's SODAR Visual Display (Aditya / VOI)

JAKARTA - The world is starting to face a new normal situation, the order of life is slowly starting to change during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social restrictions or social distancing are one of the effective ways to prevent the spread of the corona virus.

By providing sufficient space between one individual and another, the community can reduce the impact of COVID-19 transmission. The minimum distance for community interaction recommended by WHO in implementing social distancing ranges from one to two meters.

As quoted by The Verge, Google is experimenting to create a digital guide when it comes to effective social distancing. You do this by utilizing augmented reality (AR) technology which can be accessed via the Google browser on an android phone.

Sodar - use WebXR to help visualize social distancing guidelines in your environment. Using Sodar on supported mobile devices, create an augmented reality two meter radius ring around you. #hacktohelp https://t.co/Bu78QrEN9f pic.twitter.com/kufatNFDQk

- Experiments with Google (ExpWithGoogle) May 28, 2020

This Google experiment is called SODAR, which uses AR technology to visualize the minimum social distancing distance from the user's cellphone. So that users can measure the ideal space for movement when doing social restrictions.

This SODAR feature is a collaboration between the Chrome browser and a technology called WebXR, which has been pinned by Google for Android phones since 2019. How to use this feature is also fairly easy, users can access the SODAR page via the Chrome browser on the goo.gle/sodar page.

By pressing the launch button, SODAR will ask for user access to activate the camera. After that, the user will be asked to calibrate the location point prioritizing a flat surface, so that Google can display the calculation of the ideal distance from social distancing.

Unfortunately this SODAR feature only works for Android devices with the Google Chrome browser. So iOS users who access Google pages cannot use this feature.