SF’s A.R. tool boxes up cargo in the blink of an eye [VIDEO]

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could look at an object that needed to be shipped overnight and could see the dimensions instantly in front of you before you boxed it up?

Last week, a video was posted on the website of China’s SF Express, showing how SF Technology’s Vision Team has made that dream a reality. By using augmented reality (A.R.) and artificial intelligence (A.I.), the team created a new app, called INSTA 3D, which can display automatic volumetric measurement via a standard smartphone camera in real-time.

“Whenever we send large cargo, we don’t only need to weigh the cargo but also measure its volume so as to calculate the freight,” SF Express said. “Compared with the convenient access to weight data, most of the volume data is still obtained by manual measurement.”

Measuring a package manually takes about 30 seconds, on average, which may not seem all that slow, but can add up quickly if you have several different-sized, bulky e-commerce items to move.

Here’s a glimpse of what the technology can do:

With INSTA 3D, SF Technology said that couriers can now measure the volume of both large and lightweight cargo just by viewing it in their cameras. By clicking the measurement button in the app, the outlines of the necessary packaging appear surrounding the object on the screen, and the full volume measure is displayed in less than two seconds. “There is no need to place any reference object or manually select the point to calibrate the box vertex,” SF Exress said. “The freight can be calculated automatically and easily after the measurement is over.”

The average volume error for the app is less than 3%, which SF said “meets the requirements of measurement accuracy in practical business.”

In additions to regular 3D boxes, INSTA 3D but can also display the minimum external cuboid volume for special cargo. The A.R. and A.I. technology automatically recognizes the real environment in front of the camera, and shows the outlines of the measurements surrounding the objects, even as the cameras moves around them in different perspectives.

Like we said, pretty cool, huh?