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Virtual Reality Book Overlays
fiannaFailMan writes "The Magic Book is a technology that allows a user to look through a handheld viewer with a built-in camera and see 3-dimensional models as if they float above the book. The software is clever enough to keep track of where the page is, so if you move the book, the model moves with it. One application is displaying content telling the story of the America's Cup. You can download the application and use your own webcam to view this, minus the 3D effect of course."
Could have many practical applications for those who are a bit crap at following DIY instructions...
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seemed interesting till I saw that the software was windows only, and that I don't have a webcam, and I can't read....damn
Monstar L
Advance the pattern recognition a bit then
Imagine the applications for this with household objects, items at a museum, body parts, mechanical components.
Build it into eyeglasses and have an informative heads up display.
I don't think anyone commenting truly understands the possibilities that will be available when 3 dimensional screens (will they be called screens??) become our everyday monitors.
Right now, for example, we represent 3 dimensional shapes in a 2 dimensional manner. A cube is represented as three rhomboids in a plane. This gives us a representation of what a 3D object would look like in 2D. So far this has worked out great, primarily because except for actually building a 3D model, we are limited to drawing cubes in 2 dimensions.
Having a third dimension will make the representation of length, width, height a piece of cake. However, the real benefit will be the possibility to draw 4-dimensional shapes like hyperspheres and hypercubes in 3 dimensions. Whereas 2D screens limited us to representing 3D objects, a 3D screen will allow us to represent 4D objects.
With physics rapidly moving towards multi-dimensional theories about our universe, it makes sense that we start using screens that can help us visualize what those higher dimensions look like, even if our own minds are unable to grasp the true natures of those shapes.
Dancin Santa
wake me up when larry (as in flynt) is using it..
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Because children's books have enjoyed most of these book-related innovations, it's easy to overlook the evolution of "book technology" and the ways in which we're bridging the gap between digital media and the printed page.
Nevertheless, BlackMagic still looks like a View-Master, which will prevent some people from seeing it as a serious innovation. I wonder what it will take for this or (more likely) a different technology to be accepted eventually as a hardware standard by textbook publishers, fine art books, etc.
To put this into a broader context, we've already seen numerous proprietary technologies for making children's books interactive; we also have companion CD-ROMs, online rich media supplements, audiobook alternatives for an increasing number of titles, books bundled with audio recordings, and telephone book reading services offered by libraries. Most of these technologies "liberate" the text by adding sound, while only the multimedia supplements liberate illustrations. Therefore I appreciate BlackMagic's achievement, which, like LeapFrog's LeapPad, localizes the enhancements--as opposed to the CD-ROM (et al) that are inherently detached from the book itself.
...It's called a "pop-up book."
Seriously, this seems to be a pretty trivial, and almost useless, implementation of the ARToolkit. If you're going to have to wear goggles anyway to view part of the material, why not just put the whole book in memory and display it that way without having to go through the complicated and clunky "augmented-reality" step?
Haven't seen anyone say this yet, but this is one of many projects based on the GPL ARToolKit. A friend of mine has another project here.
porn?
Yet another underwhelming use of VR goggle technology. I can remember when I was working in TV this stuff, along with *cough* interactive video *cough* was going to take over the world. Along with that Philips CD-i player.
VR goggles have their uses but they are mostly for applications where you are already wearing goggles. Me and my snow buddies have been speculating for ages about a pair of VR ski goggles that would use sonar or radar to overlay a contour map of the hill when you were flying down in low contrast conditions... handy for avoiding the death cookies.
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.