Augmented Reality (AR) is the use of devices,
particularly on smartphones
or sometime computers to display extra information about an object that the, (usually), inbuilt camera may be pointed at. The images are overlayed on top of the camera view and are displayed in real-time so that they are able to move in sequence as the
camera is pointed at other objects.
This can produce a more dynamitic involvement by the user and could be likened to the use of virtual reality, (VR).
More Virtual Reality Links
Augmented Reality (AR).(Wikipedia). A term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtualcomputer-generated imagery. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality.
In the case of Augmented Reality, the augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view. The term augmented reality is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, an employee of Boeing at the time.
Augmented Reality research explores the application of computer-generated imagery in live-video streams as a way to expand the real-world. Advanced research includes use of head-mounted displays and virtual retinal displays for visualization purposes, and construction of controlled environments containing any number of sensors and actuators.
How Augmented Reality Works, (HowStuffWorks). Augmented Reality is changing the way we view the world -- or at least the way its users see the world. Picture yourself walking or driving down the street. With augmented-reality displays, which will eventually look much like a normal pair of glasses, informative graphics will appear in your field of view, and audio will coincide with whatever you see. These enhancements will be refreshed continually to reflect the movements of your head. Similar devices and applications already exist, particularly on smartphones
Augmented Reality (AR) is making significant progress and more Augmented Reality applications are being developed to proved a better experience for the user.
A multi-disciplinary research and development lab whose work centers around human interface technology. Lab researchers represent a wide range of departments from across the University of Washington campus, including engineering, medicine, education, social sciences, architecture and the design arts.
Augmented Reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real world and computer generated data.
BuildAR. Augmented Reality (AR) overlays information, images, 3D objects, audio and video onto your view of the real world around you.
Create your own mobile AR projects easily with no development required & link your content to the real world!
Only first project Free try out.
BuildAR was the world's first AR Content Management System - store that for random facts you know - it may come in handy! Back in early 2009 the Alpha version of buildAR was released into the wilderness...
To be honest, it was a bit of an experiment by MOB, an R&D lab in Sydney that, well, just does stuff. Layar had just exploded into the AR browser world, we thought what they were doing was pretty awesome, so signed up as a Layar Developer.
We started dabbling in creating layers, then we struck upon the idea that surely creating your own augmented world should not just be the domain of the people who hack. buildAR was born.
Commoncraft They use paper cut-outs. They cover subjects "in Plain English." But lurking under the simple surface are lessons that have been crafted with great care. Despite our fun and lighthearted style, we take explanation seriously.
An introduction to a new technology that adds a layer of useful information to the "reality" we see on screens of mobile phone and computers. This video can be licensed for professional use.
This video demonstrates the 3D interaction prototype that I have developed during a Master Thesis at Fraunhofer FIT in Bonn, Germany.
The system uses a depth sensing camera, which is based on the time-of-flight principle and measures phase shifts of a reflected infrared signal.
This contribution is the computer vision algorithm, the gesture recognition technique as well as the concept and implementation of the demo application.
Also see Morgan - A distributed multi-user framework for VR / AR applications The Morgan AR/VR Framework supports the development and the usage of distributed multi-modal multi-user AR/VR applications and their tailored customization to the individual requirements of the users and application scenarios. It provides both newcomers and professionals a significant speed-up in the development of AR and VR applications. It was developed to provide full support for heterogeneous distributed environments and a large variety of individual input and output devices.
3D Display Technology. Holographic displays. Three Dimensional Displays. 3D without glasses.
Acrossair, the makers of the TVGuide iPhone app bring you Nearest Tube one of the first augmented reality apps to go live in the iPhone AppStore. Forget boring 2D tube maps! Try this amazing new application that tells Londoners where their nearest tube station is via their iPhones video function.
When you load the app, holding it flat, all 13 lines of the London underground are displayed in coloured arrows. By tilting the phone upwards, you will see the nearest stations: what direction they are in relation to your location, how many kilometres and miles away they are and what tube lines they are on. If you continue to tilt the phone upwards, you will see stations further away, as stacked icons. Only available to Apple iPhone 3GS users.
Total Immersion. Augmented reality is an interactive experience where virtual components are dynamically merged into a live video stream in real time. Think: a virtual new concept car in the palm of your hand or a magic mirror where you can see yourself wearing as many pair of glasses you want without having to try them on.
HoloDesk, (Microsoft®). is a novel interactive system combining an optical
see through display and Kinect camera to create the illusion
that users are directly interacting with 3D graphics.
A virtual
image of a 3D scene is rendered through a half silvered mir
ror and spatially aligned with the real-world for the viewer.
Users easily reach into an interaction volume displaying the
virtual image. This allows the user to literally get their hands
into the virtual display.
A novel real-time algorithm for representing hands and other physical objects, which are sensed
by the Kinect inside this volume, allows physically realistic
interaction between real and virtual 3D objects.
More
3D Display Technology. Holographic displays. Three Dimensional Displays. 3D without glasses.
A 2D Helicopter played in a video turns into a 3D Helicopter that can go behind or in front of the video. It is far easier to look at the video than to try to understand the text above !
Layar, augmented reality (AR) is “the blending of the digital world and the physical world.” said Gene Becker to WebProNews that it adds digital experiences such as images, video, music, and interactivity to experiences in the physical world.
“We think of AR as really an emerging medium for creative expression and communication. It’s a medium that’s digital, that’s interactive, but it’s also uniquely physical in nature,” he said.
Layar is valuable in the augmented reality space since it is the world’s largest AR mobile platform. Its products include end-user software, the Layar reality browser, and the Layar Player. The company recently opened up its technology in order to allow developers to incorporate the Layar Player into their own applications. Incidentally, they have already noticed that developers are utilizing their technology.
Layar also recently released Layar 5.0 for Android, which enables integration with both Twitter and Facebook as well as enables animations of 3D objects. Becker said that this move offers some “pretty big hints” into what others can expect from Layar in the near future.
ARToolKit is a software library for building Augmented Reality (AR) applications. These are applications that involve the overlay of virtual imagery on the real world. For example, in the image to the right a three-dimensional virtual character appears standing on a real card. It can be seen by the user in the head set display they are wearing. When the user moves the card, the virtual character moves with it and appears attached to the real object. SourceForge ARToolKit project page. ARToolKit latest version on SourceForge.
OpenSceneGraph is an open source high performance 3D graphics toolkit, used by application developers in fields such as visual simulation, games, virtual reality, scientific visualization and modelling. Written entirely in Standard C++ and OpenGL it runs on all Windows platforms, OSX, GNU/Linux, IRIX, Solaris, HP-Ux, AIX and FreeBSD operating systems. The OpenSceneGraph is now well established as the world leading scene graph technology, used widely in the vis-sim, space, scientific, oil-gas, games and virtual reality industries.
OSGAR extends OpenSceneGraph so that it will be suitable to be used for AR applications, by supporting transformations that have uncertainty associated with them. Building on the fundamental notion of uncertain transformation, OSGAR provides programmers with a range of facilities for querying and acting upon estimated registration error. The following are a sample of the kinds capabilities we are adding to the scene graph: Aare working with the ARToolkit from the University of Washington HIT lab, for a variety of tracking applications. Primarily we have modified the toolkit to use with the Intel open source computer vision library (openCV) camera calibration and pose estimation.
The SharedSpace project has culminated in two related technologies, the ARToolKit and the Magic Book. The Shared Space interface demonstrates how augmented reality, the overlaying of virtual objects on the real world, can radically enhance face-to-face and remote collaboration. For face-to-face collaboration, this approach allows users to see each other and the real world at the same time as three-dimensional virtual images between them, supporting natural communication between users and intuitive manipulation of the virtual objects. For remote collaboration, our system allows life-sized live virtual video images of remote user to be overlaid on the local real environment, supporting spatial cues and removing the need to be physically present at a desktop machine to conference. In both cases computer vision techniques are used to precisely register virtual images with physical objects, extending the currently popular "Tangible Interface" metaphor. We present our work in the context of a collaborative card-game application that allows face-to-face and remote users to collaboratively interact with each other and virtual animations. The Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ) is developing and commercializing technology that improves human computer interaction and by doing so unlocks the power of human intelligence. The HIT Lab NZ conducts research with new emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality, Next Generation Video Conferencing, Immersive Visualization and Human-Robot Interaction. Interaction Design techniques are used to adapt these technologies to the needs of end users and solve real world problems. The end goal is to improve the user experience with technology.
Instant Reality. Framework is a high-performance Mixed-Reality (MR) system, which combines various components to provide a single and consistent interface for AR/VR developers. Those components have been developed at the Fraunhofer IGD and ZGDV in close cooperation with industrial partners: OpenSG: Open-source Scene-Graph renderings system.HID: Network transparent device and data-stream management system VisionLib: Flexible Vision/Image-pipeline processorAvalon: Dynamic scene management and manipulation system. The framework offers a comprehensive set of features to support classic Virtual Reality (VR) and advanced Augmented Reality (AR) ) equally well. The goal was to provide a very simple application interface while still including the latest research results in the fields of high-realistic rendering, 3D user interaction and total-immersive display technology.
In 19th century Japan, a form of theatre known as Utsushi-e, which used light from lanterns to project stories and images onto rice paper screen, was hugely popular.
Now Disney has used this pre-cinema artform as its inspiration for a modern equivalent: a projector for your smartphone.
Many cellphone sold in Japan and Korea already have tiny "pico" projectors embedded in them -- handy for catching a film on your hotel room wall. Disney appears to be thinking ahead for western smartphones and is already developing game applications for such phones, which it will reveal for the first time at CHI 2011 conference.
Led by researcher Karl Willis and Ivan Poupyrev at the Disney Research labs in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the MotionBeam project explores the use of hand-held projectors to interact and control projected characters in games played as the images are thrown onto a wall.
One of the first Motion Beam games lets the user control a small yellow character which scampers across the wall collecting stars as it goes. The user guides the figures by gesturing with the handheld projector itself as if it was a torch, and interacting with the game as it is projected onto a white wall.
One of the earliest tracking demo we made. Back to "marker days". It was very quickly packaged to become a software with which you could show a 3D object in Augmented Reality to a distant person via IP.
'Augmented Reality' from Sony helps you choose the perfect TV by allowing you to see how it would look in your home without ever having to set foot outside.
Forget tape measures, gut feelings and guess work.
This TV size-guide from Sony will show you how various TVs will look in different parts of your home. Just follow four easy steps and all is revealed.
You might find that you can have a larger TV than you thought as televisions are sleeker and more compact today.
Microsoft Storyteller Steve Clayton catches up with Steve Hodges, Principal Hardware Engineer for Microsoft Research, to discuss KinectFusion, an exploration of the seemingly endless possibilities that Kinect can bring to life.
Advice:
This can be popular with mobile phone users who would like to point a mobile phone camera at items. places even people, etc... and receive more information about these in real-time. For example can't remember someone's name, birthday or why they could be important to you, des correctly point your mobile phone camera at them and it could show your the information you need. Linked into to maps with GPS, (Global Positioning Systems), could describe much greater information that could be better targeted to the users prefaces than a paper based tourist guide. Their are many more situations where this could apply.
Some users me have worries about using such methods in certain situations because of the fears of crime being committed against them.
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