Using SIFT for Augmented Reality

Question

I\'ve come across MANY AR libraries/SDKs/APIs, all of them are marker-based, until I found this video, from the description and the comments, it looks like he\'s using SIFT

Answer 1

Have you tried OpenCV's FAST implementation in the Android port? I've tested it out and it runs blazingly fast.

You can also compute reduced histogram descriptors around the detected FAST keypoints. I've heard of 3x3 rather than standard 4x4 of SIFT. That has a decent chance of working in real time if you optimize it heavily with NEON instructions. Otherwise, I'd recommend something fast and simple like sum of squared or absolute differences for a patch around the keypoints which are very fast.

SIFT is not a panacea. For real time video applications, it's usually overkill.