Thanks, person who changed the blog theme and thus un-shitinated my posts

So I've made this voltorb 3D model for use in our 106/209 game, but having issues exporting from solidworks. Every time I try to import it into 3Ds it has a fit and changes the solid into a wireframe. It's really damn irritating because I was having none of these issues when I exported the headphones for 107. With the 3Ds trial gone, I had to try in smeaton, still no luck...

The first image is what voltorb looks like in solidworks right now, and the second one will be the coloured version once 3Ds decides to stop being a pos.

Download Links

The creations are available via the links below, although they did not reach their final stage of development, which would include interaction between markers and network play

Augmented Reality Pokemon (2D)

Augmented Reality Pokemon (3D)

The markers are available to be printed from here

Er my bad

Sorry about making this page look like shit. Couldn't be bothered/didn't have time to format properly after copypasta from my blog.

-Sidd

Environment.

I'm really not too sure what to write about this, as environment isn't a huge factor in our project. Basically we'll be doing this in a room environment. Most likely we'll have a desk with a layout similar to the Pokemon TCG with sides, and a nice even layout like this:

Obviously it won't be that well laid out, but somewhat similar. The room I guess will need to have a comfortable sitting atmosphere, low light for the projector and still air so all the cards don't blow around everywhere.

We'll be doing this in babbage 211 where there will be plenty of space for our project. Most likely we'll be using one of the tables sitting around, as they seem to have a suitable surface area for our game. We'll set up the laptop on one side, and allow plenty of room for the cards. Alternatively if this doesn't work, we can have a small USB webcam that can sit on the edge of one of the tables, this then linked to the laptop running our project in Flash, which'll be hooked up to the projector to allow everyone to see.

Deployment.

Now that I'm adding relevant titles to my posts, it should make it easier.

The basic gameplay is shown in the pictures below:

This is an example of the AR cards we'll use. They'll be printed off of course. These should come on the form of character and move cards. 

The above picture is a simulation of the webcam's output. This shows two AR character cards laid out on a table, and the AR generated Pokemon we'll have made 3D models of. In this example I've used Pikachu and Lickitung. 

Here we see the player use a move card with Pikachu. This causes Pikachu to attack Lickitung. The attack animations will pretty simple, usually with a slightly different maneuver for each different attack. However the animations for being attacked will be the same generic 'flinch'. All in all it's going to be pretty similar to that in this video:

The game mechanics will be more or less the same as the pokemon games on the game boy, with 4 different attack moves. Status reducing moves will reduce the opponent's defence (so your future attacks will deal more do more damage), and damaging moves will reduce the opponent's hit points. The original idea was to make something closer to the Pokemon trading card game, but that would prove too complex for such a short timeframe. The entire project will be demonstrated next week during the sessions. We'll have everything laid out on a desk and will use one of our laptops running the application (made using ARtoolkit and in Flash) with the webcam feed hooked up to the projector so everyone can see our awesomeness.

Sorry guys this is going to throw it all out of whack

Beth is posting things! Ahaha so I decided to do my part at the last minute. I know other people have done these sections too but this is my take on it. Copied and pasted from my blog entries made throughout today:

I'm going to chuck it all in one blog post so I'm going to put in a PAGE BREAK.

Research.

Artistic:

Ar has been used in many artisc ways. One being a sculptre made by Paulo Valbeuna, which is a series of cuboids. These cuboids are then overlaid with neon stroke, this gives off a 'Tron' like vibe.

http://thecreatorsproject.com/en-uk/blog/creativity-bytes-a-guide-to-augmented-reality-art-exhibits

The most amazing example of artistic AR I've seen is probably in Prague, where they had a projection mapped installation to commemorate their astrological clocktower's 600th aniversery. This used multiple projectors projecting on the clocktower describing its history. This shows how AR can be used to produce a breathtaking, engaging installation, while still being educational.

The 600 Years from the macula on Vimeo.

Industry:

One fantastic example of AR being used already is an Android application called Layar. This is a search engine based on location and AR. It takes input from the camera and applies locations via AR as shown in this video below:

Another example was a few months ago, if you bought a pack of Cheestrings you got a pack of cards. One of those cards had an AR code on it. Going on their website and downloading their software enabled you to view the AR content. here is an example of me doing so:

While the content isn't at all impressive (2D animation on a flat plane perpendicular to the card, it shows that companies are realizing the power of AR as an effective means of advertising. While now it's a rather novel technology, people are developing increasingly astounding ways of using it's power. For example this video shows how AR can be used in business cards:

The interactivity involved in this is brilliant, and with some behind the scenes code, ad the business cards 'connect' contact information could automatically be shared and saved between cards. A paper by Hirokazu Kato of Hiroshima City University published an article describing the method for a video based AR conferencing system.

Academic:

An amazing example of AR in academia is Word Lens for the iPhone. It's a translation application that overlays the translated text on top of the actual text. Using AR in this kind of educational manner is a really nice method of breaking language barriers and providing useful information to travelers going to foreign countries. Using this kind of technology to translate language at a level accessible commercially an incredible step forward in AR.