DRAWN-Together: Augmented Reality (AR)

WHAT AND WHY?

The basic idea I had when I started my little mission this weekend was to figure out a way of making my business cards a little more interesting and get people to go to my website in a relaxed and groovy way without using the 'Hard Sell'.

My current project took me around the world 'online' through tones of papers and university thesis papers on technology so I could find a way of 'quickly' creating an interactive design that would be a little unique for my business card.

I am just in the final stages of development of the process and design atm, but I can now get it so that if you popped to my website and clicked on a Interactive Button and then showed my business card to your webcam you would see a holographic image on screen come out of the business card and too you a little more about what I do. You can spin the card and rotate and the information will be image tracked to the card in three dimensions. When you turn over the card you will get some examples of my virtual designs floating before you.

I just have to port the code through to 'FLASH' now and just figure out a good way to animate the designs better and on the next evolution of my website I will add the Interactive button.

The technique is quite fun actually. A couple of years ago I created a 3D victorian doorway as a visual key for 'Sculptoria Studio' and with a simple print out I had it virtually standing in my lounge and I could walk around it with my camera in 3D looking at it as if it were actually there in the room. This was followed by having a huge Tardis and Dalek for my 3 year old son.

I will get some video footage of this soon on here so you can see.

SEE AUGMENTED REALITY NOW

If you want to see what this Augmented Reality is first hand and you have a webcam attached to your PC then pop HERE and have a little play with the green alien.