There is still a lot of ground to make in order this technology to be mature, but it can be a turning point for communication. Specially education and advertisement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9KPJlA5yds
http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=140661
AUGMENTED REALITY AND SECOND LIFE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2i-W9ncV_0
AUGMENTED REALITY AND IPHONE:
Najeeb
While researching augmented reality, I couldn’t help but be surprised at how many companies are using this technology to sell/promote their products. But what it kept coming down to for me was that I had no interest in printing off the marker in order to see what they had to show me. Besides watching video tutorials, the only time I took a look at an real life augmented reality example was when Nitin showed me an Esquire magazine with the marker already displayed on the cover.
So for the average person, I don’t really think augmented reality is something that is mainstream yet, although based on the observations of industry insiders, and the technology development in place at this time, it may very well become an every day reality soon rather than later.
In terms of the future of augmented reality, some exciting works in place are “Sixth Sense” which would ultimately allow the user to augment whatever he or she is looking at, for example, pick up a can of soup at the grocery store and Sixth Sense will find and project onto the soup information about its ingredients, price, nutritional value and even customer reviews.
The present reality is that for some cell phone users, particularly in applications for the iPhone, augmented reality is already available to the user. Within the application Yelp, which known for reviews of restaurants and other business, there is a hidden augmented reality component called Monocle which takes thing a step further. Once the Yelp application is started up, just shake your iPhone 3 times and Monocle is activated. Using your phones GPS and compass. Monacle will display information about local restaurants including ratting and reviews. You can touch one of the listing to find out more about the restaurant.
This is a really interesting technology and perhaps not just a marketing gimmick as many have commented. The implications for this technology are vast and intriguing.
When we first started to create the markers, the site that Nitin found was really great help although markers that I created didn’t work well for first couple tries. Custom marker creation is actually a lot easier if you know what you are doing, and the site below will help you how to create the markers for Augmented reality.
http://www.squidder.com/2009/03/05/for-nerds-only-custom-flar-markers-explained/
After carefully went through process of creating markers, I created png file of the marker which is 256×256 in size then took those png files ARToolkit Marker Generator to create the pattern file so the webcam can be able to read the marker.
At first, I used symmetrical shapes which the webcam could not read the marker well, then I created none symmetrical shaped marker but little bit complicated in some places which also confused the webcam. It read the marker but created issues of tilting and so on. The markers needed to be simplified and needed more distinctive shape. So we decided to use the alphabet to create simple markers.
Overall the process of making markers are really easy but you need to know what to do in order to make working marker without problems.
The team were eager to help Tom paint and texture the celebrity heads but since the kinks in the technology still needed to be worked out…Tom responded…
“Before we model and texture all these heads. I think Nitin and I, need to make a single “head” work as a collada file so it displays with the webcam.
Once we get that working, then I see the need to make more.. it would be a shame to put all the blood, sweat, and tears in making all these heads when the technology is still not working.”
So we held off on creating textures for the celebrity heads.
The next day the team were working with lower poly heads which meant there were less points. This was important because a head with higher poly would slow down the performance.
Later the same evening, Tom posted an update stating.
“So here’s an update to the project, with Nitin’s brains and my brawn we managed to figure out the 3D Model issue. Actually it was mostly Nitin, I just did the 3d object, but we now have a working “generic head” that uses textures that can be mapped to it. So that’s the good news, the bad news is because its a generic head we can’t just use celebrities faces on it because they’re so recognizable that it would look way too off.
So we’re just going to use generic faces for the time being.
So I’m creating the textures this evening, we will need someone to print and finalize the markers with Nitin tomorrow morning.” -Tom
NITIN & NAJEEB:
PROGRAMMING:
-started off with looking at tutorials ie. http://www.gotoandlearn.com
-Checked out the FLAR toolkit and switched over to the FLAR Manager because it simplified the parameters using XML.
-Also, looked into object detection; scenes tilt and movement and understanding how to make 2 classes work together, but because of time constraints could not use this.
“Yeah, I downloaded some heads off the internet however, they refuse to work yet! I have FLARmanager working though. I was able to take the only collada file that worked (a cow from a papervision tutorial) and make it show up in front of the marker. I was able to resize it and everything.” -Nitin
HOW TO MAKE MARKERS:
http://www.squidder.com/2009/03/05/for-nerds-only-custom-flar-markers-explained/
“Update on my part. Yeah, I downloaded some heads off the internet however, they refuse to work yet! I have FLARmanager working though.
I was able to take the only collada file that worked (a cow from a papervision tutorial) and make it show up in front of the marker. I was able
to resize it and everything.”-Nitin
As we were trying to solidify a concept for our club project, we came across many creative ideas on how we could possibly implement this technology. Some of the ideas from our second meeting were:
Scavenger Hunt: multiple markers would be placed on walls throughout the school, from there people would look at the marker through a web cam and arrows pointing in different directions would be projected onto the screen, leading the user closer to the treasure.
Army Tanks Fighting Each Other: Two separate markers would project army tanks onto the screen. The user would control the tank with the marker and make them crash.
Drinking Game: Like the traditional drinking game where people would place a playing card with a celebrity’s name written on their forehead, people would walk around asking for clues as to which celebrity they are. Implementing Augmented Reality to this game would mean that instead of writing the celebrity’s name the face would be projected onto a screen for everyone but the person with the card on their head.
We eventually went with the celebrity drinking game.
After choosing a concept we then split the work up between members.
TASKS DISTRIBUTED:
Tom: Renders 3D objects
Mino: recruits 6-10 new members to our Augmented Reality club
Nitin + Najeeb: program the darn thing> you go!
Nancy: Blogging + assist with designing markers if needed
Dae Kyu: design 10 different markers
Lori/Nitin: will create and direct the presentation.
We also had to find a straight on shot and side profile photo of a celebrity.
MARIO – Dae Kyu
2. ALBERT EINSTEIN – Tom
3. ELVIS – Nancy
4. JOKER – Najeeb
5. GEORGE BUSH – Nitin
6. CAT WOMEN – Mino
7. THE OLSEN TWINS – Lori
As a group we thought of various creative concepts where we would be able to implement Augmented Reality.
Some of the ideas inlcude:
GROUP MEETINGS:
POSSIBLE IDEAS:
-scavenger hunt
-army tanks fighting each other
-dice
-drinking game
TASKS DISTRIBUTED:
Tom: Renders 3D objects
Mino: recruits 6-10 new members to our Augmented Reality club
Nitin + Najeeb: program the darn thing> you go!
Nancy: Blogging + assist with designing markers if needed
Dae Kyu: design 10 different markers
Lori/Nitin: will create and direct the presentation.
In early September our Augmented Reality group came together to meet for the first time. Each of us coming from various backgrounds, such as Digital Media Artist, Graphic Design, Biology, Fine Art and Programming. We sat together and surfed the web to find out more about this intriguing technology. Some examples include:
http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality
http://www.gotoandlearn.com/play?id=105
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10zcGPQys0A&feature=related
http://www.geishatokyo.com/jp/ar-figure/figure.html
Augmented Graffiti http://nextwall.net/content/projekt/taggedinmotion.php
Augmented with Iphone http://www.augmentedenvironments.org/blair/2008/12/01/a-little-iphone-ar-demo/
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