Technabob » augmented

(Another) Magic Mirror on the Wall Wants to Make You Over

Hazel Chua — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:30:08 +0000

Having another one of those off days where you just want to throw on the first few things you can grab from your closet? You probably won’t be able to leave the bathroom dressed like a fashion disaster if you’ve got this cool mirror with an attached Kinect sensor hanging inside your bathroom.

It sounds a bit like the augmented reality mirror that researchers from the University of London have come up with. This one, however, was thought up by the folks over at the New York Times Research & Development Lab. The mirror is basically an LCD display that’s being used under the mirror here, with a sensor perched at the top.

Aside from feeding you with your daily dose of news (from the New York Times, of course), the PC behind the mirror-slash-display makes use of the Kinect SDK and an RFID tag reader that can pull up and display information about any prescription drugs or medication that you may be taking.

It can also do a quick scan of what you’re wearing and make suggestions on what you can pair with that top or what color tie you should put on with the shirt that’s already on your back. Pretty neat, huh?

[Nieman Lab via PopSci via Dvice]

Artoolkit V4.4: Augmented Reality Comes to the iPhone

Technabob — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:40:19 +0000

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of augmented reality (AR), the technology is designed to superimpose 3D computer graphics with real world imagery in real time. While there are readily available open source tools to allow desktop computer users to create their own AR videos, I’m happy to report that there’s a self-contained version coming to the iPhone.

ARToolKit v4.4 will be the first fully-featrured AR framework to support native operation on the iPhone, letting you create applications which sample real world imagery through the iPhone camera and embellish them with 3D digital objects. The software is also integrated with the iPhone’s accelerometer, so it can automatically detect movements from the phone, and impose those movements on the 3D images instantaneously.

The software also includes the ability to track multiple points simultaneously, and even place new objects in the virtual world using the iPhone’s multi-touch interface. Check out the video below to see an early build in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

At this point, the toolkit is in Alpha, so it’s only able to output at about 10 frames per second. I’m sure, however, that there will be plenty of optimization to get things running at faster speeds before it’s released. For more information on ARToolKit for the iPhone, head on over to ARToolWorks.

Levelhead: Trippy Augmented Reality Game

Technabob — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 20:26:44 +0000

New Zealand digital artist Julian Oliver is working on a cool game that blends the electronic universe with the real world. His work-in-progress game called levelHead uses a series of cubes placed on a table top. Digital cameras and custom software sense the movements of the cubes and superimpose digital images of a tiny little 3-dimensional gameplay universe.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

As you tilt each cube, the player climbs through the environment, moving in concert with the angles of the physical cube. The objective of the game is to move the cubes to help guide the digital player to the exit of each cube’s virtual environment. Some of the doorways lead to another cube, while other are dead ends that make you start all over. The whole interaction looks like a Michel Gondry video to me.

Oliver developed the game to run under Debian or Ubuntu Linux, and plans on releasing it as an open source project soon.