augmenting

Besides in the digital binocular station (last post), MindSpace Solutions also has other marker-based AR demos that are kind of interesting – (imho – still lack compelling visuals)

From AugmentedPlanet blog:

…A couple of my favourites are: Explore a Human Heart which has some really nice effects. Using five markers, four of which represent a piece of the heart while the fifth provides information on what you see. As you combine 2 or more cards the augmented reality images interact with each other.

The other demo I really like is the Solar Explorer. Similar to the heart demo but this time each marker represents a planet, when you add two planets together they scale to reflect their comparable size.

Building Human Heart video
Solar Explorer video

Here’s a good example to show that AR only looks good when done well with eye-popping graphics (not a surprise to anyone, really).

Where as the AR for YanMingYuan – a tourist attraction in China – has the idea and concept of bringing the ruins to life, it looks kind of fake and bordering on the cheesy side…

On the other hand the AR digital binocular station by NZ based MindSpace Solutions looks a bit more appealing (though, why not design the binocular to look more updated if they have to reconstruct it anyway?) and the integration of video content is always nice:

Note that in both cases, since it is using a stationary device, GPS or heavy video feed analysis might not even be needed to assemble this AR experience. As long as the computer knows the position of where the camera is looking (and we can calculate this using a rotary encoder), overlaying video and special fx onto the camera feed should be relatively simple.

Great use of AR for architectural presentations:

via arvertising