24-11-2012, 03:47 PM
AUGMENTED REALITY
[attachment=41002]
What is Augmented Reality?
“Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated sensory input, such as sound or graphics. *It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality.”
Characteristics of Augmented Reality:
It Combines Real And Virtual
It Is Interactive In Real Time
It Is Registered In 3D.
Hardware Needed For Augmented Reality:
*Display Tracking (Eg GPS, Compass)
Input Devices (Eg Camera)
Sensors (Eg Accelerometer)
Processer (Eg CPU)
Using Augmented Reality
Once researchers overcome the challenges that face them, augmented reality will likely pervade every corner of our lives. It has the potential to be used in almost every industry, including:
Education
In an Augmented Reality interface students can be seated around a table and see each other at the same time as a virtual heart floating in their midst. This results in conversational behavior that is more similar to natural face-to-face collaboration than to screen based collaboration
Looking into future ……
Expanding a PC screen to real environment..program windows & icons appear as virtual devices in real space & are eye or gesture operated, by gazing or pointing.
Replacement of cell phones: eye dialing, insertion of information directly into environment.
Virtual conferences in "holodeck" style .
Examples might be a virtual wall clock, a to-do list for the day docked by your bed for you to look at first thing in the morning, etc.
And the list goes on as your imagination….
Providing Your Own Custom AR Implementations:The Basics
Now that we have a shared definition of augmented reality, let’s discuss how it all fits together and each of the Android components that might be leveraged in your typical AR application.
Your typical AR implementation contains two main parts: the “live” data we’re augmenting and the “meta” data used for the augmentation.
For a real-world overlay example, the “live” data we’re augmenting will usually be a combination of information in the viewfinder of the rear-facing camera, the current location, and the direction the device is facing. This information is then cross-referenced with a list of “meta” data.
Key AR Component #1: Camera Data
Displaying the live feed from the Android camera is the reality in augmented reality.
The camera data is available by using the APIs available within the android.hardware.Camera package.
If your application doesn’t need to analyze frame data, then starting a preview in the normal way by using a SurfaceHolder object with the setPreviewDisplay() method is appropriate.
With this method, you’ll be able to display what the camera is recording on the screen for use.
However, if your application does need the frame data, it’s available by calling the setPreviewCallback() method with a valid Camera.PreviewCallback object.
Storing and Accessing Augmentation Data
So where does the augmentation data come from? Generally speaking, you’ll either be getting this data from your own database, which might be stored locally or from a database online somewhere through a web or cloud service.
If you’ve preloaded augmentation data on the device, you’ll likely want to use a SQLite database for quick and easy lookups; you’ll find the SQLite APIs in the android.database.sqlite package.
For web-based data, you’ll want to connect up to a web service using the normal methods: HTTP and (usually) XML parsing. For this, you can simply use java.net.URL class with one of the XML parsing classes, such as the XmlPullParser class, to parse the results.
Conclusion
Augmented reality is a broad topic that touches on many aspects of Android development and many APIs. Here, you’ve learned what augmented reality is and what Android components are involved (with related Android APIs).
Now you can combine this new knowledge with what you know of the Android SDK to enhance your existing applications or build new augmented reality applications.
[attachment=41002]
What is Augmented Reality?
“Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated sensory input, such as sound or graphics. *It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality.”
Characteristics of Augmented Reality:
It Combines Real And Virtual
It Is Interactive In Real Time
It Is Registered In 3D.
Hardware Needed For Augmented Reality:
*Display Tracking (Eg GPS, Compass)
Input Devices (Eg Camera)
Sensors (Eg Accelerometer)
Processer (Eg CPU)
Using Augmented Reality
Once researchers overcome the challenges that face them, augmented reality will likely pervade every corner of our lives. It has the potential to be used in almost every industry, including:
Education
In an Augmented Reality interface students can be seated around a table and see each other at the same time as a virtual heart floating in their midst. This results in conversational behavior that is more similar to natural face-to-face collaboration than to screen based collaboration
Looking into future ……
Expanding a PC screen to real environment..program windows & icons appear as virtual devices in real space & are eye or gesture operated, by gazing or pointing.
Replacement of cell phones: eye dialing, insertion of information directly into environment.
Virtual conferences in "holodeck" style .
Examples might be a virtual wall clock, a to-do list for the day docked by your bed for you to look at first thing in the morning, etc.
And the list goes on as your imagination….
Providing Your Own Custom AR Implementations:The Basics
Now that we have a shared definition of augmented reality, let’s discuss how it all fits together and each of the Android components that might be leveraged in your typical AR application.
Your typical AR implementation contains two main parts: the “live” data we’re augmenting and the “meta” data used for the augmentation.
For a real-world overlay example, the “live” data we’re augmenting will usually be a combination of information in the viewfinder of the rear-facing camera, the current location, and the direction the device is facing. This information is then cross-referenced with a list of “meta” data.
Key AR Component #1: Camera Data
Displaying the live feed from the Android camera is the reality in augmented reality.
The camera data is available by using the APIs available within the android.hardware.Camera package.
If your application doesn’t need to analyze frame data, then starting a preview in the normal way by using a SurfaceHolder object with the setPreviewDisplay() method is appropriate.
With this method, you’ll be able to display what the camera is recording on the screen for use.
However, if your application does need the frame data, it’s available by calling the setPreviewCallback() method with a valid Camera.PreviewCallback object.
Storing and Accessing Augmentation Data
So where does the augmentation data come from? Generally speaking, you’ll either be getting this data from your own database, which might be stored locally or from a database online somewhere through a web or cloud service.
If you’ve preloaded augmentation data on the device, you’ll likely want to use a SQLite database for quick and easy lookups; you’ll find the SQLite APIs in the android.database.sqlite package.
For web-based data, you’ll want to connect up to a web service using the normal methods: HTTP and (usually) XML parsing. For this, you can simply use java.net.URL class with one of the XML parsing classes, such as the XmlPullParser class, to parse the results.
Conclusion
Augmented reality is a broad topic that touches on many aspects of Android development and many APIs. Here, you’ve learned what augmented reality is and what Android components are involved (with related Android APIs).
Now you can combine this new knowledge with what you know of the Android SDK to enhance your existing applications or build new augmented reality applications.