Health guidelines for social distancing during the pandemic typically advise keeping a distance of two meters (roughly six feet) from people you’re not meeting.
Google’s Sodar web app makes it easier to judge the correct distance to stay safe by superimposing a two meter visual radius ring on your Android phone’s camera view. Here’s how to use it.
Launch the App
Sodar isn’t available as a standalone app from the Play Store. Instead, all you need to do is open the Chrome browser on your Android phone and enter the following URL: goo.gle/sodar.
If your device is compatible—and most modern Android phones should be—you’ll be presented with a green Launch button. Press it to launch the Sodar web app. If you’re asked for permission to access your phone’s camera, select Allow.
Show a 2m Radius Ring
So that it can locate the ground, the Sodar app will ask you to point your phone’s camera at the floor and move it around. Do so and after a few seconds you should see a pattern of dots superimposed on the camera view.
Tilt your phone back up and you’ll see the edge of a 2m radius ring signifying a distance of two meters from your position.
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for (var i = 0; i Checking it with a tape measure, we found it pretty accurate at showing the correct two meter distance, although it can get confused by objects such as furniture. It’s precise enough to give you a good idea of the correct safe distance to maintain.
How to Use Google’s Sodar AR App
You can now use the Sodar web app to show an augmented reality two meter radius ring in your environment for safe social distancing when you’re out and about. Sodar is one of Google’s experimental apps using WebXR, which brings together AR and VR on the web to make them more convenient and widely accessible.