SoftBank Vision Fund-backed mapping provider Mapbox Inc. wants to make augmented reality a part of how drivers navigate the roads.

The startup, whose technology powers location services from companies such as Mastercard Inc. and Snap Inc., hopes to achieve this with a new offering called Vision SDK that it debuted today. The toolkit will enable developers to build navigation apps with AR features for assisting drivers.

Vision SDK is capable of turning a mobile device mounted on a car’s windshield or dashboard into a sort of heads-up display. According to Mapbox, an app built with the toolkit can use a handset’s camera to capture what’s ahead of a vehicle and overlay helpful visual cues on the footage.

An app could, for example, use Vision SDK to notify the driver when a speed limit sign is coming up. Mapbox said that the toolkit can also identify a wide variety of other objects ranging from pedestrians to roadside construction obstructing traffic. This capability is powered by pretrained artificial intelligence models that run directly on the user’s device.

AI models can consume a lot of hardware resources and power, particularly when they’re performing a task as intensive as analyzing moving objects. That’s why Mapbox said that it had collaborated with ARM Holdings plc to optimize Vision SDK for the company’s processors. Chips based on ARM designs power the overwhelming majority of mobile devices worldwide.

“Our partnership with ARM will extend the Vision SDK’s reach to their hundreds of millions of devices,” Mapbox Chief Executive Eric Gundersen wrote in a blog post. “As new data is detected, the SDK classifies road boundaries, lane markings, curbs, crosswalks, traffic signs, and more. This data is then all used to update the map live to ensure the most up-to-date information.”

Vision SDK works even if a device has no Internet connection, since its AI models run locally. But companies won’t be limited to building offline apps. Mapbox said the toolkit can send anonymous location data to the cloud for analysis through an integration with Microsoft Corp.’s Azure IoT Edge and Azure Cognitive Services.

Alongside Vision SDK, Mapbox announced a number of new partnerships focused on its location services. Most notably, the startup revealed a collaboration with Intel Corp. subsidiary Mobileye to provide mapping and traffic data for autonomous vehicles. Mobileye is currently road-testing vehicles with Level 4 autonomy that can change lanes and perform other advanced maneuvers entirely on their own.

Image: Mapbox