First Eggs Tracking Application Will Augment Your Easter

First Eggs Tracking Application Will Augment Your Easter

With Easter just around the corner, we are undoubtedly facing a round of festive augmented reality applications. While last year saw the creation of GPS based applications such as "AR Easter Egg Hunt", this year brings computer-vision based applications, and leading the pack is Irregular Apps' "Talking Augmented Easter Egg".



Using what seems to be a unique algorithm to identify and track eggs, Talking Augmented Easter Egg enables iPhone and iPad users to virtually decorate plain white eggs, poke them until they (again, virtually) break and even talk to them. People may think you are crazy, pulling an egg from the refrigerator, looking at it through your iPhone and then starting to talk to it, so maybe you should let your kids play with this one.

When I tested the application on my iPhone 3GS, it surprisingly worked well. The tracking was a bit jumpy (as you might expect), but it did identify my "test egg", even with a few decoys around (like a white charger). True, it's a gimmick, that will lose its attraction in a few weeks (unless you are an angry bird, using the app to track your stolen eggs), but it's probably make your kids quite happy for those few days.

More details can be found on Irregular Apps' website.

Online Image Learning - The Next Big Leap in Mobile AR?

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.

Augmented Reality, Newspapers' Last Best Hope?

Augmented Reality, Newspapers' Last Best Hope?

We all know the future looks quite bleak for newspapers and journals. Many publications have already fallen victims to the predatory internet with its free, easily accessible and real time reports. Some have speculated that newspapers must either over-specialize or abandon their offline presence in order to survive the coming decade.

However, there's another option - forming a merger between an online and an offline presence, via augmented reality. We've already seen Esquire toying with such a concept, but now a daily newspaper in Switzerland has made a giant leap ahead.

Since this Wednesday, every page of the Swiss Blick newspaper can be scanned using Kooaba, an iPhone/Android application. Once scanned and identified, the user can see additional information about the articles or ads visible in the page, add them to her online library, and share with friends. Remember, this is not a single issue being augmented, but rather every issue from now on will have this extra layer of information.

Follow the link to see a video of Blick being augmented, but since that video can't be embeded, here's another one, showcasing Kooaba's technology:



More information here.

Augmented Reality - Now Comes in Banners

Augmented Reality - Now Comes in Banners

For their latest campaign, promoting Burger King's one dollar menu, ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky chose to break the mold of former AR campaigns. First, there's no mini-site, the whole experience is neatly contained within a single banner ad. Moreover, there's no need to print a marker. You simply show this ad a one dollar bill and it shows you an item from BK's one dollar menu. You flip the bill and it shows you another item. Finally, when you hide the bill from your web cam, your face is covered by a king's mask.



Apparently it works with other bills and even white sheets of paper, so you can give it a try. The banner is featured over here.

Giant Augmented Hand Terrorizes City

Giant Augmented Hand Terrorizes City

I had a pleasant surprise this morning when Chris O'Shea sent me a mail with his latest work Hand from Above. This public art installation features a giant hand that through the magic of OpenCV and some smart programming on O'Shea's part, tickles, picks and pounds unsuspecting pedestrians:

Hand from Above from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.

Yes, I know, it's not augmented reality according to Azuma's definition, but it's certainly original and a lot of fun. It could have been even more fun, if I could control the hand myself, but my god delusions will wait for now. More details on O'Shea's site, where you should really take a look at "Out of Bounds", another art installation that has a strong AR motif.

In Germany they have Augmented Elections

In Germany they have Augmented Elections

Just a short video for this lazy Saturday afternoon. The German federal election are held tomorrow, and the voting form may be confusing for some. Luckily, augmented reality is here to help you do the right choice:



Sounds a bit illegal, though I can see parties using such application for a last minute self-advertisement. Unfortunately, no further details are provided.

Amazing Mobile AR Videos from Graz

Amazing Mobile AR Videos from Graz

Daniel Wagner and our friends from Graz University of Technology bring us another set of amazing videos (previously). Nothing I can say can beat the following videos, so I'll just shut up, and let you enjoy.





The tracking algorithm behind it is PatchTracker that will be featured in ISMAR09. As you can see in the videos, on an Asus P565 the algorithm achieves 30 frames per second. If that's a sign of things we are going to see at ISMAR, we are going to have a great conference!

See the third video and find more details here.

Augmented Reality in Your Hands

Augmented Reality in Your Hands

Researchers from the University of California Santa Barbara have a lofty goal on their minds - "Anywhere Augmentation", which means augmenting arbitrary environments with little prior preparation. Or as they put it:

The main goal of this work is to lower the barrier of broad acceptance for augmented reality by expanding beyond research prototypes that only work in prepared, controlled environments.

Now, if have been following the world of augmented reality for the last year, you are probably familiar with the following situation. There's some site offering an AR experience, but in order to access it, you have to print at least one black and white symbol. Unfortunately, the marker you have just printed last week, for another site, just doesn't cut it. Each site requires its own marker, that becomes obsolete after two minutes. It's a defining example of prior preparation in order to experience AR, and the researcher at UCSB as a plan to eliminate it.
Enters HandyAR. Instead of using a marker, Taehee Lee and Tobias Höllerer want to track your outstretched hand.



You can even have some minimal interaction with virtual objects, dragging and dropping them, by closing and opening your hand, as the following video shows:



Ain't it cool? You can find much more information over here, where you can also download a binary (Windows) and source code (Visual Studio 2005) to play with.
(via @totalimmersion)

Augmented Reality Flashlight

Augmented Reality Flashlight

The posts I like the most are about student projects. Luckily here's another one.
A couple of students from the German research institute, the Fraunhofer Society created what they name "The Augmented Reality Flashlight". Basically, it's a micro-projector held as a flashlight to shed light (i.e. annotate) objects in your vicinity. Yep, projected AR is not dead after all.




So, what's novel about this technique? After all, we all saw MIT's Sixth Sense half a year ago. One of the students, Robert Brauer explains:

[the novelty is in] The metaphorical approach. The whole "flashlight" thing changes the style of working from the ergonomic perspective - which was our initial motivation.
In technical space I'd say that we concentrate going "pure pinky". Based on the interaction technique there is no need for coloured finger caps. We try to work naturally on and furthermore with the object. Although we really like the MIT project, the finger caps are to us what the stylus was to mobile phones. Unnecessary and annoying.

You can read more details over Brauer's blog. If you are a student that happen to work on an AR project, feel free to send me a mail, I'm just a few clicks away :)

AR Lite with SREngine Lite

AR Lite with SREngine Lite

This writer's favorite AR developer, Sein Kanemura, has just posted an English description of his latest mobile application SREngine Lite. Unlike the full blown SREngine, this one does not try to augment a video feed, but rather tackles the simpler task of mobile image recognition. It similar to Nokia's Point and Find and some other mobile applications, but I find its interface very attractive:



The Lite version makes do without a server (up to 20 images can be stored on the device), doesn't require GPS or compass readings, so it works on the iPhone 3G as well as on the iPhone 3GS, and it's purely based on image recognition.

SREngine Lite recently won the Japanese "Next-Generation Communications & Marketing" award under the Future category. And, following the trend, Kanemura promises to "release SREngine Lite SDK for iPhone which allows developers to design own ar app.".

More details here. Tom covered SREngine Lite a couple of week ago, but I've waited for the English translation, mistrusting Google Translate.

AR for the Environmentally Aware Shopper

AR for the Environmentally Aware Shopper

This next augmented reality concept , named FoodTracer, comes to us from Italian Giuseppe Costanza, as his final year project for MA Communication Design at Central Saint Martins. And it's quite an impressive final project!
Aimed to give consumers more information about the food products they are buying (such as their carbon footprint and where they were produced), while minimizing packaging, FoodTracer is a bright idea on how AR can make the world a tad better. Users would be able to access the information that concerns them, compare and bookmark several products, and later examine their shopping history at home. Here's one of Costanza's imagined use cases:

When Susan goes shopping in her usual supermarket she knows where organic products are placed so she can quickly pick the right products, but today she went shopping in a new supermarket where products are displayed in a different way, she doesn't have the time to check on the packaging which product is organic so she uses FoodTracer to easily spot organic apples.

Costanza even built a demo application for the Symbian mobile operating system, using embeded markers and d-touch nice looking markers that hide in the products' logos, as can be seen in the following video:

FoodTracer concept+demo from gusepo on Vimeo.

Many more details over here.

Augmented Pool is very Cool

Augmented Pool is very Cool

Yep, it's the silliest post title I've ever come up with. Nevertheless, this next video is really cool. It features both a robotic pool player and an augmented reality guidance system for human pool players (starting at 2:00).



It was developed by a team of researchers from Canada's Queen's university. Sadly, I couldn't find much information about the augmented reality implementation. However, here's an article about the robotic system, and I guess that once they implemented the robot, advancing to AR only required identifying the cue stick.

Magic Mirrors

Magic Mirrors

When it comes to using augmented reality for marketing purposes, nothing beats those magic mirror applications. After all, trying on a product, even virtually, goes a long way towards selling it (and surely it's better than those novelty AR gimmicks).
Previously I've covered Fraunhofer's magic mirror that lets you try on new shirts, and just last week we reported about virtually trying on diamond rings. Today I'm going to cover to exciting companies working in this field, Fittingox and Seac02.
One of the first and still most famous commercial applications of this kind was Ray-Ban's virtual mirror that enabled web surfers to check out how would they look with different sunglasses. The company behind the technology, FittingBox, has recently licensed the technology to British online glasses retailer Glasses Direct. Taming face detection algorithms, FittingBox can place a pair of glasses on you with an admirable accuracy. And it doesn't end with Ray-Ban and Glasses Direct. Vogue Eyewear also uses that technology and FittingBox is the owner of YouAreTheModel.com, where you can try on many other brands. Here's a short video showcasing the technology:



While FittingBox is somewhat a niche company specializing in virtual eyeglasses, Seac02 develops many AR applications (and I really need to cover some of them, sometime). Their Eligo engine simplifies the creation of magic mirrors application at point of sales. Seen here is HairArt, an application developed by Seac02 Asian distributor Hanoul Neotech, that lets the user try on wigs. Yes, we have seen such applications before, but it's always good to see another one:

Hair Augmented Reality from Seac02 srl on Vimeo.

Another application of this technology is this next magic mirror that lets you try on and even choose some tailor made shoes. This one still needs a marker to work out, but according to Seac02 they will be releasing a version in July that waives this requirement and detects your feet automatically.

Eligo, a virtual product experience from Seac02 srl on Vimeo.

(Glasses Direct via Not Just Reality)

AR, no Programming Knowledge Needed

AR, no Programming Knowledge Needed

Do you want to play with AR, but too afraid you don't have the required programming knowledge needed? Now you have two applications to play with from the comfort of your own home.

First is Metaio Unifeye Design. Available freely in an (almost fully featured) demo version, this tool is far from being a toy. You can create elaborate scenarios of marker based and marker-less image based augmented reality without writing a single line of code. You can test your creations with your web-camera or using a prerecorded video clip of a marker. There's even a tool for creating new markers.



However, such flexibility does come with a price. I had a hard time working with the user interface beyond the basic functions, and I'm quite sure I only scratched the surface of what's possible with this tool. That's why I had this application installed for about a month now, but I was hesitant about writing anything about it.
Metaio claims that video tutorials are coming shortly, and I think they are very much needed (and I'm a programmer in my spare time :).
In more somber news, you can't use your own 3d models, or export your scenarios as a stand alone application. You probably have to pay for those features.

Now, if Metaio Unifeye Design was a bit too complex for you, the next application is truly augmented reality for beginners. It's called Atomic, and it wraps ARToolKit to give you the basic functionality of augmenting markers with VRML 3d objects when you examine them using your webcam. The application source is available to download as well, so eager programmers may add more features to it in the future. Another advantage of this tool is that it allows you to import and use your own models. However, don't expect to amaze any AR veteran using it.



Once again:
Unifeye Design
Atomic (Atomic via Rising Wisely)
Happy Augmenting!

Imitation is the best form of flattery

Imitation is the best form of flattery

This game for Google Android reminds me of something, but I just can put my finger on it.

PTAM + AR on an iPhone 3G

PTAM + AR on an iPhone 3G

Usually I try to avoid having a post consisting of just a Youtube clip. But I'm too tired for a full blown post, and I'll compensate you over the weekend. I promise.
So here's Oxford University's Georg Klein, running a port of the PTAM algorithm on the iPhone. It's shiny!

New SREngine Video

New SREngine Video

Sein has just posted a new video on his blog (in Japanese, though an English version is apparently in the workings). I think it's really amazing what one man can do on his own:



I've covered SREngine before, and so did Ori, and from video to video you could really see how this application takes shape.
Though using image recognition makes it a bit slow (for the meanwhile) in comparison to systems based purely on GPS and compass positioning , it allows it to identify smaller things, at shorter distance and within close quarters. I really can't wait to see it available on the appstore.

More Core Tools for Augmented Reality

More Core Tools for Augmented Reality

Last week Microsoft held an "Enabling Innovation Through Research" event at its Cambridge research labs, and demoed many of its projects. Core Tools for Augmented Reality was one of those projects, presnted by Simon Winder:



Well, there's nothing in this video we haven't seen before, to be precise, two months ago at Microsoft's Techfest (click for my previous blog post). Even the same bubble oriented treasure hunt game was shown then. The technology itself is based purely on image recognition, using the same concepts behind Microsoft's Photosynth. Some more details (but not too many) can be found on the project's web page.

Via The Future Digital Life and Developement Memo for Ourselves.

Augmented Field Guide

Augmented Field Guide

The New York times ran a story yesterday about a new breed of field guides, those made not out of paper, but out of data bytes and computer vision algorithms.
The article mostly revolved around a new application coming to the iPhone, that enables users to take photographs of leaves and by doing so identify the tree to which they belong.

The computer tree guide is good at narrowing down and finding the right species near the top of the list of possibilities, he said. “Instead of flipping through a field guide with 1,000 images, you are given 5 or 10 choices,” he said. The right choice may be second instead of first sometimes, “but that doesn’t really matter,” he said. “You can always use the English language — a description of the bark, for instance — to do the final identification.”

The technology comes from this group at Columbia University, which on their site you can find the academic papers describing the algorithms that were used in prior incarnations of that application. Now, I know some of you will say that this is not AR, since no image-registering was involved. Well, it fits my definition of AR (it augments our reality), and if you are not convinced yet that this item belongs on this humble blog, take a look at the next clip, that involves a HUD, and fiduciary markers:



Anyway, I find this use of AR fascinating. It could really connect kids with nature, detaching them from the computer screen for a while, and transforming any outside walk into an exploration. What do you think?

Augmented Animals of the Future

Augmented Animals of the Future

It's old news, but I'm allowed to be late since I had to overcome a language barrier. Since 2008, Le Futuroscope, which is a really cool theme park in France with many cinematographic related attractions, has a ride named "les Animaux du Futur" (animals of the future). Based on the BBC show "The Future is Wild", this ride, created by Total Immersion, takes you through futuristic landscapes and lets you interact with the animals occupying them.

LES ANIMAUX DU FUTUR, BANDE ANNONCE DE L'ATTRACTION
by Futuroscope-TV

Since its inception, the ride had a home version, that enabled you to see some animals come to life on an AR marker. To welcome a new version of the ride, launched last month, the home version went one step further, and enabled users to play with the dreaded "octopus monkey", without any need of printed markers. It looks like great fun -



You can try it yourself at this mini-site (via Development notes for ourselves)