AR Pilot
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I have been exploring the use of Augmented Reality (AR), a pivotal part of my Thesis in terms of experiencing both the building and the city. This is a quick demo showing a range of geometries including simple animated content, which are being tracked simultaneously. I hope to use this technique not only to represent different aspects of the scheme interactively but also to portray different layers of the digital city relevant to the story and experience of my building. The big issue now of course is the interface…  |
George,
This is very cool, but how useful is it in practice? What can it be used for other than a presentation device and even then wouldn’t a video/walkthrough/dynamic model be more useful?
Would be interested to know our thoughts and what software enabled you to do this?
Aston.
AR certainly has a glut of potential uses although it is currently limited by interface technology. There is clearly a lot of hype but most of it is well ahead of time – it may be ten years or more before it actually evolves into something truly useful and revolutionary. The simplest form uses a QR code or pixel-based recognition via a camera to augment a virtual geometry in realtime. Even in this simple form it has great potential but it is not particularly accessible given the limitations with current devices (cumbersome tablet pc/miniature iphone etc. The next iPad is likely to have a camera, which could really open things up. It would be most useful as a rapid interactive presentation medium capable of bringing together geometry/text/animation/texture/graphics etc. – have a look at [http://www.wsadt.net/2010/03/communication/]. This is a manufactured version but is along the right lines, AR could also be used for planning – being able to visualise and experience the proposal in real spatial terms, far more communicative than any set of 2D drawings. The main software for creating scenes like mine above is ARToolkit [http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/] but most recently there is a program called BuildAR [http://www.hitlabnz.org/wiki/BuildAR] which drastically simplifies the process. I used a tablet device for my Thesis so that all my conventional 2D representation was in fact fully-interactive in 3D.