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Since I watched the movie Tron as a kid I loved the idea of 3D and Virtual worlds and Augmented reality.
Unfortunately as time went by and we were disappointed by not all having our own VR headsets, flying cars and didn’t have the augmented reality highway billboards that we were promised in movies such as Back to the Future, the dream of 3D and augmented reality slowly dwindled into something of myth and even though 3D TV tries to bring 3D back, their world has to be seen through “rose tinted glasses”
Luckily over the last few years a lot of researchers around the world has been experimenting with Augmented reality and 3D. I know Middlesex University Interactive Design Centre has done interesting work related to Augmented Reality and Visual Analytics regarding Air Traffic Controllers, who’s work might be complimentary to the work done by Laboratory of Informatics of Grenoble shown below
MacStories points to an interesting use of the iPad’s front facing camera to provide a convincing 3D effect on the iPad. Jeremie Francone and Laurence Nigay from the Laboratory of Informatics of Grenoble put together this demo video showing how user tracking can be used:We track the head of the user with the front facing camera in order to create a glasses-free monocular 3D display. Such spatially-aware mobile display enables to improve the possibilities of interaction. It does not use the accelerometers and relies only on the front camera.
Francone and Nigay were inspired by the work of Johnny Lee who built a similar system using a Wii system. The app does not yet appear to be available for download. We had previously reported that Apple was also exploring this type of 3d “hyper reality” displays for the Mac desktop based on a patent application published in 2009.
The user could then move their head left and right to look around a 3D object as shown in the example image above. Apple also suggests that it could also be applied to 2D objects like windows to provide some added depth to traditionally flat objects.
As with all patent applications, we don’t know if Apple will ever deliver these technologies to market, but 3D has become a trendy topic once again, so there’s been a lot of renewed interest in this field.
With this type of research being done and the speed of uptake of devices such as the iPad, it will only be a matter of time that we will have a much more interesting reality to explore.
Viste iPhone Video Tutorials
