N Building by TERADADESIGN

N Building is a commercial structure located near Tachikawa station amidst a shopping district. Being a commercial building signs or billboards are typically attached to its facade which we feel undermines the structures’ identity. As a solution we thought to use a QR Code as the facade itself. By reading the QR Code with your mobile device you will be taken to a site which includes up to date shop information. In this manner we envision a cityscape unhindered by ubiquitous signage and also an improvement to the quality and accuracy of the information itself.

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Headspace by Geoffrey Drake-Brockman

Headspace is an interactive robotic artwork, created by  Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, with 256 independently moving rods in a matrix some 1.5m by 1.5m. The control system is loaded with 3D scans of 700 school students. Headspace is a variable relief sculpture. Located at Christ Church Grammar School Perth, Western Australia.

Google Goggles Sudoku Demo by Google

Google has just released an update to their camera app which now enables it to solve Sudoku puzzles. Google Goggles enables interesting augmented reality experiences.

OutRun by Garnet Hertz

Garnet Hertz’s video game concept car combines a car-shaped arcade game cabinet with a real world electric vehicle to produce a video game system that actually drives. OutRun offers a unique mixed reality simulation as one physically drives through an 8-bit video game. The windshield of the system features custom software that transforms the real world into an 8-bit video game, enabling the user to have limitless gameplay opportunities while driving. Hertz has designed OutRun to de-simulate the driving component of a video game: where game simulations strive to be increasingly realistic (usually focused on graphics), this system pursues “real” driving through the game. Additionally, playing off the game-like experience one can have driving with an automobile navigation system, OutRun explores the consequences of using only a computer model of the world as a navigation tool for driving.

AR Magic Mirror by Tobias Blum

Interesting AR experience created by Tobias Blum at Munich Technical University. The Kinect camera allows tracking of users without additional markers. He developed a magic mirror that generated an overlay of a video image with volume visualization from a CT volume. Such a system could be used for education of anatomy. The Microsoft Kinect provides a color and a depth image. Using OpenNI and PrimeSense NITE he can get the skeleton of a person standing in front of the Kinect in real-time. He registers a CT dataset to this skeleton and can show an Augmented Reality overlay of the CT and a person. Using context and focus visualization he shows the CT through a virtual window, while still showing the person. The system is currently a prototype. More information on the project website.

LightSpace by Microsoft Research

LightSpace combines elements of surface computing and augmented reality research to create a highly interactive space where any surface, and even the space between surfaces, is fully interactive. This concept transforms the ideas of surface computing into the new realm of spatial computing. Instrumented with multiple depth cameras and projectors, LightSpace is a small room installation designed to explore a variety of interactions and computational strategies related to interactive displays and the space that they inhabit. LightSpace cameras and projectors are calibrated to 3D real world coordinates, allowing for projection of graphics correctly onto any surface visible by both camera and projector. Selective projection of the depth camera data enables emulation of interactive displays on un-instrumented surfaces (such as a standard table or office desk), as well as facilitates mid-air interactions between and around these displays. For example, after performing multi-touch interactions on a virtual object on the tabletop, the user may transfer the object to another display by simultaneously touching the object and the destination display. Or the user may “pick up” the object by sweeping it into their hand, see it sitting in their hand as they walk over to an interactive wall display, and “drop” the object onto the wall by touching it with their other hand.