Metaverse One

As part of a presentation I have next week that focuses on mixed reality, I built an augmented reality application for viewing various 3D CAD models. For the time allotted to this project I kept it simple and sweet. I decided to use a traditional marker here as the scene had too much visual noise for image recognition with all the foot and car traffic. Markers on my iPod Touch load different levels of detail 3D models of this one building. Clicking on the model binds it to a viewpoint so the marker is no longer needed. The example in the video is built on a 'mixed reality' framework that allows interactive models to be accessed by virtual and augmented reality applications. I will be sharing more of my work, application examples, and videos about this framework in the coming months.

A few months back a friend told me of a 3D city map app called UpNext . Naturally being a digital city geek I downloaded the app for my iPod Touch to give it a quick look-see. Launching the app gave me the choice of several 3D city maps (Austin, Boston, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.) to download that I could access offline which is a super plus for those with an iPod Touch. I selected San Francisco, which only took a few moments to download, and it didn't take long to become impressed with the app. Navigation uses standard Apple interface actions such as pinch to zoom, two finger drag to tilt the view, etc. As I zoomed in from the initial bird's eye view of the whole city, the app broke the city down into its neighborhoods. This was a nice surprise as I still don't know the exact locations of all the 'hoods' in SF. Zooming further down quickly loaded simple but nicely textured 3D building models with more levels of detail as I got closer to ...

So I just got back State-side from a seven week tour through western Europe that included a series of events and video interviews with leading players in augmented and virtual reality technologies. One of my destinations was Amsterdam, Nederlands and besides enjoying the madness of the World Cup finals, I had the opportunity to stop by mobile augmented reality company Layar's office for a chat. Now this was super exciting for me as although familiar with Layar as a mobile AR platform, I had not had a chance to really grok with the guys, despite being at several events together, to discover what exciting things were going on with this company that is just over one year old and seeing explosive growth. Now anyone familiar with mobile augmented reality or the AR industry has heard of Layar, but for those that have not, see the video below. After a short walk on a very warm day from the city's centrum to their office, I met with co-founder Maarten Lens-FitzGerald for a great conver...