augmented.org

David Arenou from the design school from Nantes, France, wrote his diploma on video games and immersion and did a pretty impressive job writing an action game to be played like the Wii combined with Microsoft’s Natal. As a design student he wanted to focus on the concept and design of course - not on the hardware implementation of a new infrared or time-of-flight tracking system. And that’s where Augmented Reality comes in handy! He uses markers to integrate real life furniture into the game (making them obstacles to take cover behind), define buzzers (a button to be pushed to open a door, etc.) and to track his own position. But now take a look:

DIPLOMA : Immersive Rail Shooter from David Arenou on Vimeo.

So the actual game is an immersive virtual reality game with different controllers (Wii and marker), so AR is “only” in there to set up the playground. But maybe in a later version this idea could be extended to get a more accurate representation of real life objects to further mix the two worlds. A camera is connected easily to show it in AR (as David does during the setup), but for this gameplay concept the augmented mirror doesn’t make too much sense. It’s better to shoot through a window (like it is done here) than onto a mirror. I just love the game. David? If you read this: could you drop me the binaries, so I can try it out? :-) I got my Wiimote and my markers prepared!

Check out his rendered concept video, too!

… and let there be multi player! :-)

Dear readers,

just quickly another note towards the next AR meeting in Europa, starting today in Graz, Austria. The Technical University is welcoming all AR enthusiasts to take part in their conference styled meeting on AR, discussing the fresh technology and also enjoying a bit of skiing in the snow. Unfortunately I’m going to Dublin tomorrow and couldn’t make it, but Rouli should be there, blogging the latest news regarding the WARM event. A short snippet from Graz’ website:

We welcome presentations on all topics related to AR and Ubicomp including but not limited to:
- Tracking including sensor fusion and computer vision
- Mobile augmented reality
- Ubiquitous augmented reality
- Smart environments
- User interface techniques and interaction methods
- Applications
- User studies
- Future directions for AR research

We are curious what will be presented, I know that metaio is present, too, showing another new prototype. (Maybe the junaio android beta?)

In other news…

I always enjoy a close interaction in AR, combining a natural physical movement having effect on the AR objects, like posted before regarding the Rubik’s Cube or the one on true interaction and manipulation. It gives the best results and (marketing speech) user experience, as it allows a real physical involvement, that is more integrated than just “I hold a marker on top of my hand”. Sorry, I’m getting repetitive, but we had some nice examples, e.g. the skating Santa Claus, steered through paper tilting.

Now another demo hit youtube, shown below:

Actually, we’ve seen this on the iphone (without AR) and I know, that a couple of students did a similar project (including me ;-)). It’s just a neat concept, IF you offer more than reality does! On the iPhone/Android it’s just a simple rip-off of the old wood maze game, but in this simple demo above it already shows the potential: to integrate animated objects, that wouldn’t work in a wood construction! This is what I like so much about these concepts: using an old simple real-life concept of (e.g.) a game, but extending it, making it bigger - into something that wouldn’t be possible without AR. Also the interaction is easy and flawless. Another step would be to further extend this non-possible ideas: teleports, more layers / floors, animated enemies. But keeping it simple, based on the wood game. Love it! :-)

Over a year ago, I posted about Julian Oliver’s Cube AR game, where tilting and rotating the cube would lead to movements by the small game figure, projected over the cube, as if it were inside of it. A great concept for an AR game - to be frank, still one of the most compelling, talking about Webcam-based AR. It’s just so intuitive and stable, you have a full haptic feedback and you get a perfect overlay fitting to that haptics, since the AR cube is always as big as the real one. Kudos again! :-)

Now I’ve encountered another AR Cube concept, where I’m not so 100% sure about the rules yet, but it also uses tilts of the cube to move an avatar. But here comes the most interesting twist: the Cube is actually a Rubik’s cube (or Magic Cube, etc. - don’t want to start a war on copyrights), with printed markers to each field. Once you turn the cube elements, you will affect the projected gaming world. Good concept.

Unfortunately I don’t understand much about the rules in the youtube video (Imagine Cup interview doesn’t reveal too much either), hopefully we get more information on it. The first part, moving by tilting, is a bit slow, but the second part has really great potential with an awesome input device - if combined well with the story. It gives me the idea of searching for (natural) sources below the surface (the surface projected, the “drilling” done by your hands below the green (But this might be a bit off, thinking of the OLPC donation. ;) )), somehow combined with a memory game of three-in-a-row. It seems like a really neat idea, but compared to Julian Oliver’s idea I think a bit of potential might get lost. I would prefer to see the action happen again inside the cube or somehow around it, but still see the physical cube completely. Otherwise (like here) you start acting blindfolded. A brain/riddle game where the patterns have to be rotated according to the projected VR scenario would have a bigger impact, imho. A more intense mixing of the two realities - not hiding the real world - would bring an interesting twist into it. It could even become an AR Rubik’s cube solution walkthrough for the lazy. ;)

But that’s just another option. Right now, AR is not really used for augmentation here, but rather as an input device (which has a great approach!). You don’t see the on-top markers and the lower ones are partially covered by your hands. So it’s getting tricky to track. A visual analysis of all small cubes would be great, maybe even handling hand-occlusion correctly, having scanned the cube once, allowing for a full cube magic game. I’ll definitely check back on this one. :-)

Busy days. So, today just a short one on interaction.

I’m always fond of new mixed reality, VR and AR interaction metaphors or devices to make the human and the machine work together easily. A mouse and a keyboard is just not the right input for AR scenarios. Last time I posted on this, was regarding marker interaction to manipulate the virtual objects. Now we have a video from diginfo showing a ToolDevice from Ritsumeikan University. Nothing too scary to see here, but I like the research in this field. It’s completely intuitive with a grasp and cut/sew metaphor and if you replicate actual tools from the real (tool) world, you can have a perfect training scenario (for engineers, doctors or for your next BBQ). :-) Enjoy!

(via dev memo)

Make-Up artists beware! A new demonstration in Japan shows augmented reality make-up, where you scan your head and have a magic mirror concept to immediately show the results of a possible do-over, without sitting there with an actual brush and patience.

To be frank, I can’t really tell the difference before and after in this video, but that might just be me. The idea is neat and if the head tracking is stable enough, it’s a great point of sale / virtual marketing progress. We’ve seen this before with T-Shirts, clothings and sneakers and even hair. But this one seems to be ready to hit the retailers.

If you are having video conferences quite often, this one might save you some time on your daily routine. We are virtually getting closer to avatars as in all the current genre cinema (e.g. Surrogates or the silly Gamer), though they actually re-use physical bodies (real or robot ;-)).

(via japentrends)

A long time ago there was the first try of an augmented reality version of the all-time id classic Quake. Performance was low, quality was cr*ppy, but it was a nice first attempt - even with occlusion by the real world’s objects (through hand-modelled real world 3D architecture duplication). Now this video hit the world on youtube “Augmented Reality Game Example - Future of Augmented Reality Gaming”.

It nicely shows a fast paced action shooter, of course first-person style. It appears to be a live demo, since the crowd is waving into the camera and the virtual soldiers appear among them. It comes with a toy-gun to shoot those enemies and a great looking real-time keying for the occlusion by real victims/extras. There is nothing more to say. It’s just a stunning demonstration of how we could have the next level of military training, gaming or complete other scenarios with mixed and augmented reality.

For now I couldn’t find the source of it (fake, real, …). It seems to have been shown on a R&D summit in Isreal 2008 and T-Immersion is listed in the tags. I’ll investigate. If you know more, please let us know in the comments!