Augmented Reality: Science Fiction or Reality? (w/ Video)

July 7, 2009 by John Messina

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(PhysOrg.com) -- Computer graphics have come a long way since the birth of Atari Games over 30 years ago. Today, computer graphics seem very real and some day researchers will pull graphics out of your television or computer display and integrate them into real-world environments.

This new technology, called augmented reality or AR, will further disguise what's real and what's computer-generated by enhancing what we see, hear, feel and smell.

Up until now AR has been used extensively in movies and been mostly confined to Hollywood. Today, it's now possible to shoot augmented reality by using only a mobile phone.

The video below demonstrates basic AR in action. The AR scene involves an AR shooter shooting at zombies and using skittles as bombs to blow up zombies.

By using Nvidia's new Tegra platform, the game's maps are generated by pointing the phones camera at a 2D drawing printout lying on a table. The end result shows a realistic 3D world with buildings popping up, as players move the real world around the game map placed on the table.

Motion controlled devices for Nintendo Wii and Microsoft's new Natal platform are already being used to enhance gamers experience. By using the Natal platform, as the control mechanism, body movements can easily be converted into game movements. The ultimate goal would be to merge game graphics with the real world. The day will come when video games are played outdoors and project into the real world around us.

In the future augmented reality will have a more profound effect on the way in which we develop and interact with computers.

Via: PCAuthority

© 2009 PhysOrg.com

• jsovine - Jul 07, 2009
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (3)
  Old news is old, but that doesn't make me want it any less :D
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• DeadCorpse - Jul 07, 2009
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  Sure as hell beats that lame Pac-Man game they built in Singapore.
  
  http://www.newsci...e/dn6689
  
  Zombies are teh r0x0rz... ;-)
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• melajara - Jul 07, 2009
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  The real use for this technology is education. Aspergers for example owe their extraordinary memory abilities to cenesthesia. Artificial cenesthesia and kinetic mapping of abstract concepts (to have a real "feeling" for ideas) should boost learning abilities. Of course the industry needs a lot of imagination here ;-)
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• Yeraze - Jul 07, 2009
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  VizWorld has covered alot of augmented reality systems ..
  
  http://www.vizwor...-reality
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• el_gramador - Jul 07, 2009
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  So....Asperger's Syndrome people have good memory because they feel their organs and feel existent? Or is more from the aspect of Synesthesia?
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• jcrow - Jul 07, 2009
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  You could make the best beer goggles ever with this.
  Don't even need to drink or anything.
  
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• patnclaire - Jul 08, 2009
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  I vote for a Holodeck.
  I do think there is much to be learned about our brain functions from studying Aspergers, Savants, etc.
  What about those of us who hear voices or see pink elephants or large rabbits?
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