Magic Vision Lab will Melt, Distort, X-Ray and then Augment your Reality

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Ori Inbar
Chris Sandor, a veteran AR researcher, who worked with some of the most distinguished AR labs and researchers in the world such as Graz University, Columbia University, TU Munich, and Canon Research – is now is the Director of the Magic Vision Lab at the University of South Australia.
Chris and team have recently revamped the lab’s website which is a good opportunity to revisit some of their work previously covered during ISMAR.
First a word on the lab’s name.
In his “Sermon on the flatlands“, augmented reality prophet Bruce Sterling cautioned the AR community to stay away from terms like “magic”: “Magic is cheezy and deceitful. Practicing a leisure domain is a problem” he argued.
Chris brings to his defense a no lesser sci-fi luminary, Arthur C. Clarke, which famously coined the third law: “Any sufficently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
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What do you think about the usage of the term “Magic” in conjunction with AR?
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Now to substance in the revamped site:
Humans perceive their environment primarily through vision. Our goal is to enhance human vision with computer-generated graphics in order to amplify human intelligence on a world-wide scale. Our vision is shared by a large and growing community that is investigatingAugmented Reality.
The lab focuses on 2 key areas:

Mobile Augmented Reality Visualizations (melting, distorting, xray)

The following X-ray Vision is one of the more inspiring videos in AR
The next video depicts a technique called “melt vision” which is useful when a user wants to see points of interest hidden from view (occluded) and could also double as a simulation of a building demolition:)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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The second area of the lab’s focus is dubbed:

Visuo-haptic augmented reality systems

In laymen’s terms, it’s about combining visual and touch.
In this video a user, wearing a head-worn display, can see the virtual car and feel the car with his right hand through a haptic device called Phantom.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

This technology has huge potential in training newbies and experienced professionals in many fields such as healthcare, design, manufacturing, and many more.

To wrap up this AR Lab review –

Here is a classic: AR Weather, received our tongue-in-cheek award of the “most down-under demo” during ISMAR 2008. All I have to show is this image that depicts an AR application that overlays snow on a sunny day in Australia.

If you would like to showcase your work in augmented reality labs – let us know!

Filed under: AR Tracking, augmented reality | Tagged: , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Apple See-Through Augmented Reality HMD Glasses

Posted on December 29, 2009 by thomaskcarpenter

The January issue of Mac Life sports a fauxtograph of possible Apple augmented reality HMD glasses. It’s hard to know how much of this article is based on concept, but Apple working on an AR HMD would be a huge jumpstart to the nascent technology.

In mid-April of 2008, Apple published a patent for a “Head Mounted Display System.”  The patent shows screens and fiber optics and vision imaging controls.  Would the display use pico projection or utilize OLED displays?  Pico displays could be used right now, but OLEDs might be a year out.

Would Apple make HMD goggle for augmented reality?  Looking back at this 2006 interview on MacSimumNews, we can see that Steve Jobs was already considering it.  Given that he also denies Apple is looking at a HMD practically guarantees they have something in the works. 

Jobs: Yes, you want a nice big screen so that you can see lots of music and you can pick out what you want, versus a tiny little screen. But then again, you want the screen to be small so that you can put it in your pocket. Actually, discovering and buying music on a computer and downloading it to the iPod—in our opinion, that’s one of the geniuses of the iPod. So you can look at changing that—and maybe that will happen over time—but I think the experience you’ll get on a device optimized for putting in your pocket is going to be far less satisfactory than on a personal computer. You may still want to do that [on a small screen] occasionally, but I don’t think it’s ever going to mean that you can not have some other device that is your primary device for buying and cataloguing music.

Swisher: What would solve that? Can it be solved?

Jobs: Rollable screens, goggles you can put on; I don’t know. It’s not on the horizon.

Given Apple’s trademark secrecy, it’s a huge unknown if MacLife’s article is pure speculation or its based on some real knowledge.  We do know that Apple has patented aspects of an AR HMD, so it’s not crazy to think they might come out with one.  With tons of augmented reality applications hitting the market, I can’t imagine that Apple will wait too long to unveil their AR glasses to grab a critical market lead.  All the pieces of the technology are available as we speak and I’m not the only one to notice this (read PatentlyApple).   

Microvision, Vuzix and Lumus are telling us to wait until 2011 for AR HMDs, but if Apple gets involved, we just might see it happen in 2010.

Filed under: AR Vision, augmented reality | Tagged: , , , , , | 13 Comments »