Archive for February, 2012

Announcing: ISMAR 2012 – Call for Participation

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Hey everybody! It’s time for the first ISMAR posting 2012! Now everything seems to come together for this year’s event in Atlanta. Their website is now up and running and they’ve provided me with the call for participation announcement to share with you. I’ll share it in old school typewriter style to make it look more nerdy! (Love it.) Enjoy and submit!

(C) ISMAR 2012

ISMAR 2012

Call for Participation
The 11th IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality
Nov 5 - 8, 2012, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, USA

http://ismar.vgtc.org/

The fields of Mixed Reality (MR) and Augmented Reality (AR) seek to interactively mix virtual media with a person’s perception of the physical world around them. Whether interactively combining physical and virtual objects and environments in 3D, or reacting to location or other aspects of a users context, these paradigms enable fascinating new types of user
interfaces, and are beginning to show significant impact on industry and society.

This year we are proud to present the 11th IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2012). The symposium will be held on Nov. 5 - 8, 2012 at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, USA.

* ISMAR 2012 now invites contributions to a range of categories: *

- Papers and Posters to the Science & Technology (S&T) program
- Papers and Posters to the Arts, Media and Humanities (AMH) program
- Innovation Workshops
- Informative Tutorials
- Demonstrations
- Art Exhibits
- Tracking Competition

* Science and Technology Program: *

The field of Mixed and Augmented Reality is highly interdisciplinary, ranging from human centered research into user interfaces, interaction techniques, education, design, human factors, wearable computing and mobile computing, through to more technology oriented research including computer graphics, display technology, computer vision, sensors, signal processing and computer networking. We invite contributions in all categories relating to, but not
limited to, MR/AR aspects of:

- Sensors
- Information presentation
- User interaction
- System architecture
- Human factors
- MR/AR Applications

* Arts, Media & Humanities Program: *

The 2012 ISMAR Arts, Media and Humanities (AMH) program invites artists, designers, and scholars to explore the potential of Mixed and Augmented Reality. Artists and designers are invited to present and contextualize creative work in MR or AR media forms and to reflect on the place of these technologies in various fields of art and design. Scholars are invited to
present work that analyzes or critiques AR/MR in the contexts of current social forms or the history of art and media. We invite contributions in all categories in relation to, but not limited to:

- Media art, Performing arts, Art History, Architecture, Urban design,
Game and toys, Cultural Heritage, Social media

- Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Literary Studies, Game Studies,
Practitioner Case Studies, Design research, Communications

* Important Deadlines *

Paper and Poster Abstracts - ** Required **: May 18, 23:59 US Pacific Time
Paper and Poster Submission : May 25, 23:59 US Pacific Time
Notification for Papers and Posters: Aug 8
Camera-ready copy: Sept 7

Workshop Proposals : April 10
Tutorial & Panel Proposals : June 15
Demonstrations : August 10
Art Exhibits: August 10
Tracking Competition: TBA

* Further Information & Contact *

For detailed information on topics, submission and formatting, visit the
website at http://ismar.vgtc.org/.

If you have further questions, feel free to email info@ismar12.org, or contact
the general chairs.

General chairs: general_chairs@ismar12.org
Blair MacIntyre, Georgia Tech
Greg Welch, University of Central Florida

That’s all from me today. Over and out! :-)

Gravity AR and news for the starting week

Monday, February 13th, 2012

G-Force for AR

Metaio’s Augmented City with 3D markerless tracking has been shown last year at insideAR and ISMAR. But now metaio’s Dr. Himane explains a bit more on how the Augmented City is being upgraded to benefit from 3D markerless tracking. Their latest video shows it in action.

The short excerpt with the real 3D-overlay on a building without any markers shows the way we always wanted AR for mobile devices in the first place! No floating GPS-based 2D-billboards nor black/white markers on all the buildings walls of the world. This is definitely a big step towards their “AugmentedCity” and a real integration of CGI into our mixed reality. Well done!

More details and spec-talk are blogged by youngrss here.

What else is on the web

(C) Vuzix

  • Vuzix news on HMDs: their Star optical see-through goggles now come with the option for stereo camera setup. Another step towards complete AR.
  • The latest PS Vita AR trailer can be seen on youtube.
  • Google fans around the world spread more rumors on HMD AR goggles. Would be awesome to get there soon!
  • Total Immersion put their new showreel for 2012 online. A nice collection of all the cool AR demos from the French tech fans:

  • An interesting interview with Vivian Rosenthal (from GoldRun) at CES 2012. She gives insights into her passion for AR, today’s Augmented Reality technology and her visions into the future of it all.
  • Digital agency Karmamedia’s co-founder Szabolcs Sandor put up a comprehensive AR guide, he is now offering as an eBook for the Kindle. It is a nice summary of AR technology focusing on mobile devices, including AR browsers, AR games and technical details on QR code usage. A neat overview for marketeers taking a first look on AR use.
  • Enjoy the week!

    Mixed News for the New Month

    Friday, February 3rd, 2012

    Hey everyone!

    Time for an all-inclusive update today, giving a wider overview of news for you to enjoy the AR weekend! Let’s start right away with a fancy picture and a new tech demo:

    Interactive car windows

    (C) GM Tech Window

    GM and the Future Lab joined forces to bring us a nice prototype of the augmented-car-window scenario. I’ll just have this one for itself:

    Designing Real World Collaboratories with Christopher Stapleton

    Christopher Stapleton gave a guest article on medicalaugmentedreality to talk about AR, medicine and innovating the innovation. Please check it out and join the open questions he gave at the end of part 1.

    Hardware News

    Samsung shows their great augmented fridge glass, that makes me think of thousand other uses than displaying cooking information or the latest tweet. The (actually working) digital blinds are an awesome step. With pixel-by-pixel access for transparency switches we can have a perfect occlusion with augmented objects in see-through glasses!

    BASF and Philips show us a way to create OLED-based windows. As in the first video and the second, we get another chance to see, where this hardware is heading. A great enabler for AR to have full control over surfaces to get towards some kind of translucent surface-based AR (unlike projected or handheld-device-dependent).

    (C) Vuzix

    • Vuzix continues to push HMD- or AR goggles-development forward, so that we can enjoy lightweight sun shades design goggles for AR. The new SMART glasses presented at CES 2012 are said to be launched for industry and consumers alike this summer. Their press release tells us a bit more about the setup, e.g. they are fully useable outdoors, are see-through and give us optionally cameras and gyros for tracking functionality. Engadget showed us already the monocole version at CES.

    Software, Apps and Games

    • Qualcomm unveiled at CES, that their AR platform will now be called “Vuforia”. So, don’t get confused when downloading the latest SDK Version 1.5 (Beta 1) under a new name. :-)

    • The PlayStation guys have some new demos for us for their PS VITA augmented reality scenarios. Adding to the last video from December, we now get to see their soccer game presented fresh at CES.

    • Besides… if you are willing to try out some stunts, without risking your live, check out “Ken Block vs you” from imagination.

    • …or use browsAR to qr-code scan your shirt, redirecting your friends or not-yet-friends directly to your facebook site. Privacy is a thing of the past anyway! :-)

    (C) Ogmento

    • …or let’s play Ogmento’s King of the Court challenge. Shortly described, it says: “NBA: King of the Court is a free to play, Location-based, Augmented Reality game for both iPhone and Android smart phones. In NBA: King of the Court , players will compete to become the “King” of virtual basketball courts placed in real-world locations around the world.”

    I like the idea of combining location based “check-in” fun like foursquare with location based gaming experiences. It’s just so much more fun to be standing at a bus stop and challenging the other real people, that played the same micro game at the same spot before. Only checking into locations and becoming the major through pure physical presence… well… is a bit dull on the long run.

    • … or play the aaaarrrrrrrr! AR Pirates game! A 3 coin marker system that lets you set up a pirate ship basically anywhere. I like the game played at a lake, where the ships really appear in the water. Battle your friends!

    Upcoming Fairs

    If you happen to be in or around Monaco next week, don’t miss the IMAGINA fair. The fair on 3D Simulation and Virtual Technology also has a special augmented reality event, with Nokia, T-Immersion and Qualcomm talking about mobile AR. Be sure to attend!

    Cheers!