Online Image Learning - The Next Big Leap in Mobile AR?
Mobile, image recognition based, augmented reality is very cool, as evident from the Popcode's demos we posted yesterday. However, creation of a model used by the mobile phone to recognize a new image still requires a desktop, hindering realtime creation and sharing of AR content.Thanks to the work of researchers from the Korean Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology and the Swiss EPFL, this needn't be the case anymore. In a paper titled "Point-and-Shoot for Ubiquitous Tagging on Mobile Phones" accepted to ISMAR 2010, they present a method to scan surfaces and create "recognition-models" by using your phone (no data is sent to a remote server).
You don't even need to take the perfect straight-on picture. As the video below shows, this means you can augment hard to reach surfaces. Best of all, you can share those models with your friends.
A little bit more detail over Wonwoo Lee's blog.
Popcode Pops into the AR Scene
The young British company, Extra Reality Ltd. (founded this June) has posted a couple of very impressive demos of its first product Popcode. With the goal of commercializing AR research done in the University of Cambridge, Popcode is a combination of marker based and marker less approaches. First the user needs to scan an easily identifiable code which causes her mobile to download a model used to register and augment a marker-less image. The registration seems quite robust:The best thing is that Extra Reality provide an SDK to develop your own AR models, which can then be uploaded to their servers to be identified by clients worldwide. And it's free for non-commercial use.
I'm a bit worried about their marker code, though, as it seems to contain a very limited number of bits. If Popcode becomes hugely successful (and I really hope so), they'll have to come up with another scheme.
Sadly, it's only available for Android right now, so I can't really test it (hey, benevolent sponsors to be, this is a call for help!).
See more demos at Popcode's website.
Weekly Linkfest
On this edition of the weekly linkfest, face detection, bug squishing and Hollywood stars.- Real time and quite robust face tracking on Nokia N900 from researchers at the University of Manchester. Not originally part of an AR project, but could be easily become one. [Via Zugara]
- Congrats to Kooaba for landing a $3 million funding round (boo to Techcrunch for coming with the corniest headline ever for a story; even I don't get so low).
- A multi-part video interview with Robert Rice. Probably Future Labs will upload it to their site in the coming days for a more comfortable viewing experience.
- Want an augmented version of Hollywood's Star Walk? There's an app for that, and it will cost you 3 bucks. Would someone create a free channel for Layar or Wikitude, please?
- Two years old art project, but still cool - creepy crawlies of the augmented kind (luckily they are still squashable)
- Mashable on how non-profits can use augmented reality, and why they don't actually do it. [via @DavidFosterAR]
- More fluff about Google Goggles, and some speculative fluff about AR in Windows 7 Mobile phones.
This week's video comes to us from Youtube user bittman25, or as his friends call him Danny. The clip is called "If Minority Report Was Our Twisted Reality". It's not a masterpiece, but has a nice twist at the end:
That's it, have a nice week!
Augmented Shadow: The best AR project you'll see today
Beautiful work by programmer and designer Joon Y. Moon using a projector hidden inside a table. Words can hardly do it justice, so just watch the video:Augmented Shadow from Joon Y Moon on Vimeo.
Apparently Augmented Shadow stems from Moon's MFA thesis in Design & Technology for Parsons. He writes:
In this installation, the shadows exist both in a real and a virtual environment simultaneously. It thus brings augmented reality to the tabletop by way of a tangible interface. The shadow is an interface metaphor connecting the virtual world and users. Second, the unexpected user experience results from manipulating the users’ visual perceptions, expectations, and imagination to inspire re-perception and new understanding. Therefore, users can play with the shadows lying on the boundary between the real, virtual, and fantasy.
More details on the project's home page.
Gundam Robots in Augmented Reality
This post can be summarized by three magic terms:- Augmented Reality
- Giant Robots
- Yahoo Japan
Interestingly enough the application is both image-recognition based and GPS/compass based. It will show the mecha when the iPhone camera will be directed at the (real) 18-meter tall Gundam statue in Shizuoka, Japan, and when the camera is pointed at a special marker.
For more details check out Anime News Network. Via Development Memo for Ourselves.
Weekly Linkfest
I hate August. It's too darn hot over here. Luckily there a few cool and refreshing augmented reality stories this week:- Lester of Augmented Planet on why augmented reality glasses are 20 years away. I sadly have to agree. It's another reason why people should consider publicly-installed AR projectors has a viable option.
- Augmented Planet also bring us the story of one gigantic marker and the world's largest AR project.
- Damon Hernandez continues with his video interviews series, this time with the "AR magician", Marco Tempest (with some behind the scenes at some of his magics).
- In Indonesia, even a celery can be sexy with the aid of augmented reality (via @TalkingDogAR)
- Real-time OCR/translation of Chinese text through iPhone video camera from Pleco Software is coming soon.
- Change your eye color, look like you have been possessed by a deamon , all via augmented reality - Angel Eyes.
- There was a lot of buzz around Metaio's iPhone-augmented magazine (it's a first under some assumptions).
Sniff from karolina sobecka on Vimeo.
Have a good week!
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