CUDA Spotlight: Néstor Gómez



Néstor Gómez

GPU-Accelerated Augmented Reality

This week's Spotlight is on Néstor Gómez, CEO of Artefacto Estudio in Mexico City. Artefacto Estudio is a developer of interactive applications and games.

The company's projects include the creation of a Microsoft Kinect-based virtual shoe exhibit which allows people to "try on" different styles of shoes using augmented reality. This interview is part of the CUDA Spotlight Series.

 

Q & A with Néstor Gómez

NVIDIA: Néstor, tell us a bit about Artefacto Estudio.
Néstor: Artefacto is an independent development studio. We have been working for ten years in the areas of game development and interactive applications for marketing, museums and mobile. We integrate solutions using cutting-edge technologies like Microsoft Kinect, Oculus Rift and Leap Motion.

NVIDIA: How did you become involved in the shoe industry?
Néstor: An ad agency, Kempertrautmann, was seeking a technology partner to work on a prototype for a virtual shoe fitting exhibit for Goertz, the German shoe company. The agency found us through the web, as a result of our experience with Kinect-based projects for customers like the Hall of Fame soccer museum in Pachuca and La Rodadora in Juarez, Mexico.

NVIDIA: Tell us about the prototype you created for Goertz.
Néstor: The goal was to create a real-time tracking system that could follow the position and orientation of a user's feet and render realistic shoes with a full HD live video feed. We worked on the prototype for a year and a half, and it was used as the foundation for a Goertz marketing campaign (shown here). With the technology, Goertz was able to create temporary virtual kiosks which were rolled out at public places like train stations and shopping centers.

NVIDIA: What happened next?
Néstor: After the campaign was released, we were contacted by companies around the world who were interested in using the system for various purposes. Eventually that road led us to Delcam-Crispin, a leader in design and manufacturing software for the footware industry. We now have a distribution deal with them and we are working on an end-user version of "VSF," our virtual shoe fitting system.

ArteFacto

NVIDIA: What role does GPU computing play in your work?
Néstor: VSF utilizes three Kinect sensors: two for tracking and one for the user interface. We need to process all that data at 30 frames per second (fps). Initially we tried to use only the CPU but it was not enough to get real-time performance. Now we are able to achieve our goal by running image filters and computer geometry algorithms on the GPU.

Foto-2-VSF

NVIDIA: In what ways do you leverage CUDA?
Néstor: Our approach is to try to use all the CUDA processors most of the time. For the images, we divide the image into smaller portions and divide them among the available processors. For the voxel algorithms we use a similar approach.

Some of the image processing algorithms we are using are erosion, background removal, gaussian blur and connected component labeling. Other algorithms include finding the minimum and maximum, matrix multiplication, table look up, building a voxel and 3D connected component labeling.

NVIDIA: What parts of your work are the most complex?
Néstor: There are some algorithms that are difficult to divide and some that require a lot of effort to gather all the results. In algorithms such as finding the minimum and maximum, it is relatively easy to gather the partial results, but algorithms such as the 3D connected component labeling are difficult to implement and hard to debug. Several merging steps are required to gather the partial results. Complex structures had to be designed to store and share information.

NVIDIA: Why is CUDA important to you as a developer?
Néstor: We take advantage of having thousands of CUDA cores processing information at the same time to reach real-time performance.

Profiling is very good on CUDA and it allows us to find bottlenecks easily. One of our favorite tools is NVIDIA Nsight Visual Studio Edition, which enables us to debug our parallel code and profile the execution times of every part of the tracking algorithm. It's an excellent tool for debugging and optimization and it integrates well with Visual Studio.

NVIDIA: What are the key challenges in your field?
Néstor: Our challenge can be summed up very simply: get the most accurate tracking possible and the most realistic rendering possible. Reducing latency is also a goal, of course.

NVIDIA: What's the "next big thing" for your company?
Néstor: We would like to deliver a complete augmented reality-based retail experience where you can try on virtual clothes. The clothes will look very realistic and the textures will respond naturally to your body movement.


Bio for Néstor Gómez

I am CEO at Artefacto Estudio and a teacher at the Tecnologico de Monterrey. I love computer graphics and interactivity. I enjoy creating interactive experiences with new technology and amazing people with our creations at Artefacto Estudio. I have a Master's degree in Computer Science.

Relevant Links
http://www.artefactoestudio.com

Contact Info
Twitter: @artefactogames, @nestorgomezmx
Email: ngomez@artefactoestudio [dot] com

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