ARToolkit

The ARToolKit is one software library you could use to build your own Augmented Reality projects / interfaces. Below are images of projects created with ARToolKit. Timo Arnall has an interesting write up of some experiments he did with this free for non-commercial use software library.

ARTag (image and videos below) is another system which uses tags (very similar to Data Matrix tags):

where virtual objects, games, and animations appear to enter the real world. 3D graphics is added in real time to video, similar to “view matching” in Hollywood, except that with Augmented Reality it is happening online. ARTag “Magic Lens” and “Magic Mirror” systems use arrays of the square ARTag markers added to objects or the environment allowing a computer vision algorithm to calculate the camera “pose” in real time, allowing the CG (computer graphics) virtual camera to be aligned. This gives the illusion of 3D animations or video games to appear to belong in the real world.

If you can’t see the embedded movie above see the videos page here.

Post partially inspired by this post at Turbulance and reblogged from this post at Network Research.