The opening is meant to be viewed live on the internet-
updates can be seen at http://manifestar.info/live/
In this work we will infiltrate and give the global community access to a highly contested space-
If you would like to participate please have an active Twitter account set up before the start of the show!
The work can be seen in real space @
Club Karlsson Art Space-
Keizersgracht 264 Amsterdam
Then you could finish the week by enjoying the physics of a pendulum presented as an interactive AR setup (I always love good physics in mixed reality, as it gives a way more convincing immersive blend of the two worlds) or by watching the great mixed media choreography showing a shadow sword fighter (found by Rouli, thnx! Made my day!):
… and be sure to remember next Tuesday night! The regular’s table will meet again! TU Munich? Please bring your Who Am I-game along! ;-)
Mixed news for today, collecting the latest AR news!
Contest
As mentioned earlier by us, the Qualcomm developer’s AR challenge from last year found a winner and now Qualcomm presents the first ranked Paparazzi in their own video: An interactive game where the player becomes a virtual paparazzo and sneaks pictures of a vain celebrity before he gets agitated and attacks your camera. Congratulations to the two developers from Lithuania, Paulius Liekis and Arminas Didžiokas! I especially enjoy the part, where the stalked celebrity jumps to the phone and dangles off of it, as can be seen better in this other youtube video.
AR@Nintendo 3DS
As we’ve been expecting the Nintendo 3DS will feature some AR games, making use of the installed camera. Now wired has found some more details on the five games, that could be shipping with the new cool toy with autosterescopic 3D. Hopefully, Nintendo will be using the two video signals for AR and generate a stereoscopic output. Can’t wait to see it live on March, 25th. :-)
Mobile World Congress & Demos
While the MWC has come to an end, we are still waiting and collecting fresh uploaded videos from the tube. E.g. metaio showed their Android powered feature tracker in a new prototype, while we have high hopes for the InvenSense MPU-6000 chip to give us stable 6 DOF tracking (good, no-jittery 3 axis would also be fine).
Meanwhile, Ford UK shows us another kiosk system to configure your car and enjoy it in AR. The new twist: you hold up your hand to carry the miniature car around (instead of a marker or brochure). “Interactive augmented reality screens created to promote the new Ford Grand C-MAX. Using pioneering gesture recognition to illustrate the car’s technologies by putting innovation in your hands.”
AR for planning and reconstruction
Switching to a serious topic. To give live information and some support for reconstruction after the fatal earthquakes in Christchurch, the famous AR-originating HIT Lab from New Zealand has started a new project:
The Earthquake AR project was started in response to this emergency and explores how mobile Augmented Reality can be used to visualize reconstructed buildings and show other earthquake related information on site. It is based on the HIT Lab NZ Android AR platform which allows users to see virtual buildings overlaid on the real world with an Android mobile phone.
… we are getting closer to real feature based 3D AR tracking (without the ugly markers)! – Even for mobile devices now. Also, we have lots of cool new demos below!! But, back to #1 prio for now – the feature tracking: on the one hand it is a question of CPU power of our (pocket) computers, but on the other still a lot about brain juice from great researchers around the globe improving the algorithms. Below you’ll see my this weeks highlight coming from metaio, bringing us their iphone 4 based 3D feature tracking demo. (via their blog) The example gives us virtual service instructions of a printer embedded into the live video:
They will be hopefully presenting the demo during the upcoming mobileworldcongress in Barcelona. This year from February, 14th to 17th. The conference also has two special talks dedicated to AR:
Currently scheduled for Tuesday (4pm) AR – Is Reality ready to be augmented? they discuss whether location based services are better off without or with AR – maybe with another interaction paradigm still missing? Is the hardware ready and who will -if- be the first to make the break-through?
The second session is on Wednesday at 2pm, titled Mobile Innovation: a Vision of 2020. I’ll just quote it:
Back by popular demand, this visionary session will once again provide an insight into the mobile society and what it will provide in the future. This demo-rich session will highlight the trends set to
transform the way we will communicate over the next 10 years, covering augmented reality, 3D devices, display technologies and more.
Let’s see!
feature based 3D #2
Also putting his efforts into the feature tracking with SLAM algorithm is Jairo from Vicomtech (greetings to the fellows of my ex-company! :-)) His demo video on youtube shows us his approach, working with CUDA for parallelism and real-time efficiency. Quoting: Both tracking and reconstruction are done using a particle filtering framework. This video has been recorded with a 320×240 camera, no markers are used and the 3D structure is unknown a priori.
kinect ar physics demo: LABSID (a company born from Polytec U in Barcelona) gives us a nice combination of depth sensing Kinect with AR plus physics (based on nVidias physX):
Meanwhile, the computer graphics group in Erlangen, Germany, presents their 3D-face scanner using the Kinect. One day, we’ll have it all combined and play in AR with gestures and Avatars who mimic us completly…
Also waiting for the results on the Qualcomm 2010 AR Challenge? To recall: Developers from around the world participated in Qualcomm’s 2010 Augmented Reality (AR) Developer Challenge and created rich AR experiences including interactive games, educational applications, and marketing concepts. These apps use Qualcomm’s AR platform, which includes the AR SDK for Android and the AR Extension for Unity.They tease us for the results with this new video. Winner will be announced on February, 15th.
… and what about games?
Great! Love the idea! Students from technical university (TU) München have been playing Who am I? too often, I guess. One night they didn’t take a post-it, but rather markers… and now we have a fully-fledged Android AR party game, as it seems! Are you reading this, TU München researchers? Please bring it along to the next AR Stammtisch (regulars table) on March, 1st! :-) ‘d love to play it! ;-)
For the weekend a few pieces of news to enjoy. Kicking off with state of the AR from the Netherlands. Somehow I missed documenting on it in November and stumbled upon their video again. The short youtube impressions sums up their ar(t) event. The AR+RFID Lab (from now on ARLAB) focusses on AR and new technologies like RFID to develop innovative applications of emerging ubiquitous computing technologies in the field of art and design. It’s a collaboration initiative of the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and local companies. The exhibition has been curated by Joachim Rotteveel. Worth a glance for sure. I dig the huge black and white crates installation the most. :D
The second video today show us how playing good old battleships can bring even more fun with AR throwing the cannon ball onto the grid. Well, actually it could bring more fun. But the players obviously don’t see the augmentation. Damn! We need those HMDs now! A not-so-great video for a great AR idea. The principle of an AR view could be pushed even more: don’t hide the other’s grid, but just augment a different view. This could support a lot of AR games like battleships, stratego or any other board / table top game where you hold secret information:
Metaio meanwhile augments the superbowl with a 360° view app: “the viewer finds himself right in the middle of the Cowboys Stadium enjoying a 360 degree view as he moves the camera around his own position. Clicking on the screen allows the user to jump to where the players enter the stadium, down into the locker rooms or even to view some of the famous murals of contemporary art located in the interior of this fabulous stadium.”
The press release and their blog quotes CTO Peter Meier: “This cooperation between USA TODAY and junaio is another great example of our vision of the ‘Augmented City’ and how augmented reality is able to bring additional value to everyday life. Just as junaio lets the viewer look inside the Cowboys Stadium, it can also assist buyers, looking for office space on the real estate market, to get a first glimpse of a vacant office by simply clicking on the building. And the second example of the 3D game play animation demonstrates how print editorials and even news can be augmented with digital displays, thereby enriching the reader’s experience.”
T-Immersion (through ARDoor) also continues to enhance their AR experience. This demo is not in the mobile area, but rather for a work space combined with a multitouch table and Vuzix goggles. The next best thing to holographic displays for cool futuristic headquarters! We can’t really tell how it feels like when looking through the HMD, but the markerless tracking sure looks rock solid:
Last but not least…
At the same time, Argon explains us their Virtual Tour Guide and Le Sketch, the free mini-comic with sketches from top-notch contemporary cartoonists and illustrators, give us their latest edition as an AR paper: www.lesketch.com
