Now Available on the App Store: SR Engine 2

Posted on August 9, 2010 by rouli

My favorite independent augmented reality framework, Sein Kanemura’s SR Engine, has just reached the important version 2.0 milestone, freely available on the (Japanese) App Store. Moreover, an SDK was released, allowing developers to create their own image recognition based applications. Capable of identifying up to 150 images, one should be able to use SR Engine to create augmented reality applications for small galleries and venues.

As always, I’m pretty impressed with the UI design, fitting such a “futuristic” application. Mr. Kanemura seems to not only have excellent programming skills but a good eye for design.

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SREngine Goes Public

Posted on February 3, 2010 by rouli

It’s been a while since we last visited one of my favorite AR application, Sein Kanemura’s SREngine, and my, how it has grown!
What started as an AR browser-like image recognition based project, has now been released as a “Point&Find” like application for the iPhone. Available for free on the Japanese App Store, Eigaru, powered by SREngine, enables to look at movie posters and see associated trailers and reviews:

Now correct me if I’m wrong (I don’t have an iPhone), it does look like Eigaru works by analyzing the video input, and I thought that the API does not expose such functionality. So, is Eigaru the first of its kind?

More details on SREngine’s new home page (in Japanese)

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Weekly Linkfest

Posted on September 20, 2009 by rouli

It’s time again for the weekly linkfest. Let’s see what else happened this week in the world of augmented reality:

In the realm of mobile browsers:

  • SREngine has a new video out showing its slick user interface.
  • Hong Kong’s Leisure Guide – yet another AR browser (YAARB™)
  • Metaio announces the coming release of Junaio, but doesn’t give much information about what Junaio really is.

And in other news:

  • Total Immersion now enters the world of soccer trading cards, at least in Italy.
  • You can get pregnant without the morning sickness via the wonders of Flash based AR.
  • The Virtec project is a thesis project using AR to teach about Aztec culture by means of a book and a head mounted display.

This week’s video revisits one of this blog’s reoccurring themes, the Transformers (previously here and here). This application comes with the Transformers coming DVD, or as this trailer puts it “Prepare for Augmented Reality! An exclusive 3D Holographic Experience!”:

Have a nice week!

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Weekly Linkfest

Posted on August 23, 2009 by rouli

Hope you didn’t miss the weekly linkfest’s early edition, published yesterday, covering some of the best articles, posts and talks that were published during the week. Here are some more interesting bits from around the AR ecosystems making news this week:

And finally, this week video comes from Hongik University of South Korea. It shows a project named “Will be”, created in 2004 (and presented in ISMAR05), which is the augmented reality take on a story board. It’s quite nice, though some of the features could have been more accessible if they were implemented via standard GUI, rather than ARUI:

Have a nice week!

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AR Lite with SREngine Lite

Posted on July 21, 2009 by rouli

This writer’s favorite AR developer, Sein Kanemura, has just posted an English description of his latest mobile application SREngine Lite. Unlike the full blown SREngine, this one does not try to augment a video feed, but rather tackles the simpler task of mobile image recognition. It similar to Nokia’s Point and Find and some other mobile applications, but I find its interface very attractive:

The Lite version makes do without a server (up to 20 images can be stored on the device), doesn’t require GPS or compass readings, so it works on the iPhone 3G as well as on the iPhone 3GS, and it’s purely based on image recognition.

SREngine Lite recently won the Japanese “Next-Generation Communications & Marketing” award under the Future category. And, following the trend, Kanemura promises to “release SREngine Lite SDK for iPhone which allows developers to design own ar app.”.

More details here. Tom covered SREngine Lite a couple of week ago, but I’ve waited for the English translation, mistrusting Google Translate.

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New SREngine Video

Posted on May 20, 2009 by rouli

Sein has just posted a new video on his blog (in Japanese, though an English version is apparently in the workings). I think it’s really amazing what one man can do on his own:

I’ve covered SREngine before, and so did Ori, and from video to video you could really see how this application takes shape.

Though using image recognition makes it a bit slow (for the meanwhile) in comparison to systems based purely on GPS and compass positioning , it allows it to identify smaller things, at shorter distance and within close quarters. I really can’t wait to see it available on the appstore.

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