Samsung Electronics will launch Relumino, a free app which works with the Gear VR headset and claims to enhance the vision of visually impaired people.

The app processes images from videos projected through the rear camera of a smartphone and makes them “visually impaired friendly”.

For instance, it can magnify and minimise images, highlighting their outline and adjusting their colour, contrast and brightness.

For those suffering from a blind spot or tunnel vision, Relumnio, which means ‘light up again’, remaps images to make them visible.

“The end effect is that Relumnio enables visually challenged people to see images clearer when they are reading a book or viewing an object,” Samsung said.

Users with newer models of Galaxy smartphones (S7, S7 Edge, S8 and S8+) will be able to download the app in the Oculus Store with support for both English and South Korean languages.

However, Samsung emphasised Relumnio does not provide support for the totally blind.

In the future, the team behind the app plans to develop “glasses-like” products for the visually impaired and “continuously address inconveniences that arise from the recently released application by getting users’ feedback.”

The app was showcased by Samsung’s in-house incubator programme C-Lab earlier in the year.