Augmented Reality. What is it? How does it work? Where is it taking us?

John here,  Interactive Media Designer for Designing Digitally, Inc. Over the past several months, we have been developing augmented reality applications for clients. With this new and exciting technology we have been giving our clients' users a fresh new experience and a whole new way to interact with both the virtual world and the real world. I wanted to take some time out to share this amazing technology our team is working with.

Great! What is Augmented Reality again?

Augmented reality, at a very basic level, turns the real world into a canvas in which developers can construct user experiences. It makes the world we live in a playground for virtual sights and sounds. It gives us the opportunity to deliver information and entertainment to the user with real world context. To place augmented reality into a more technical light, it allows us to take visual information and map it directly to objects within real life footage. What makes augmented reality so ground breaking is that all of this tracking happens in real time. Have you ever driven by a restaurant and wondered what time it closes? Augmented reality could look at that restaurants logo along with GPS information and display a virtual billboard over the restaurant with the information you need.  It may sound like science fiction but it is already being set in motion.

I think I follow. How can I use Augmented reality right now?

Although augmented reality is still in its infancy, when you look at the grand scheme of things it can still be a valuable tool in multiple fields and at various levels. Everything from simple greeting cards to educational tools to branding and marketing tools can effectively incorporate augmented reality. The simplest examples of augmented reality are novelties and publicity gimmicks. For instance, you could send someone a birthday card. When they show the card to their computer's webcam, a 3-D birthday cake would grow out of the card. A more serious example is low cost hands on virtual training. An auto mechanic could use physical tools to work on virtual car. A surgeon could perform virtual practice surgery from his computer while still using his hands.  These are all possible with technology available today, but as hardware becomes faster, smaller, and more portable, applications such as these become even more cost effective and feasible.

Amazing! Where is this going to go in the future?

As the technology develops, you will see augmented reality mini apps more and more often in day to day life. Real time data will be streamed to us about everything we see, smell, hear and touch. We will be able to interact with this data in order to make more informed decisions. Heads up displays will show us detailed history on cars and homes for sale as we pass them on the streets. We at Designing Digitally, Inc. are excited to be at the forefront of this amazing emergent technology.   Before you know it the virtual will become real and the real will become virtual. We hope to help blur these lines.


Please print the PDF listed in the link below then open the demo, also listed below. (Note: to view this demo you must have a webcam)

Step 1 - Click here to open the marker PDF you need to print

 

Step 2 - Click this link to activate the Augmented Reality and your webcam.

 

 

It has been a month now since we provided details on our Chinese OpenSim Virtual World Development. We are currently building the Forbidden City of China to provide students with familiarity with their surroundings in the virtual space. From our studies we have found that virtual world users often enjoy recognizing their virtual surroundings. Therefore, by creating some of the well known spaces in China we hope to help the students feel comfortable within this virtual learning space. Not only are we building these structures to resemble the Forbidden City but are actually building these to be dynamic classrooms. Within the classrooms you can click a control panel located in the back of the room and change the layout of the room to a round table, formal classroom, breakout sessions, and even one-on-one meeting spaces. These dynamics allow for the classes to be held in one single location and will not disrupt other classes being held on this private grid. Additionally, we have developed an innovative interactive white board for Second Life and OpenSim. This board is one of the only boards that will allow users to do all of the following: 1. Easily change the video media (all-in-one) with a click of a button 2. Easily drag and drop PowerPoint screens on to the board with the board automatically arranging the items in the appropriate fashion 3. The ability to rez objects on the whiteboard such as pointers, boxes, circles, text, etc. To see some of the progress of this development take a look at the screen shots below.

Forbidden City:

Country Side of China

Interactive Whiteboard & Video Player

Dynamic Layout 1 of Classroom:

Dynamic Layout 2 of Classroom:

 

Control Panel For Dynamic Classroom:

We will keep you posted on the development as our team continues to design and develop. Keep watching our blog for more updates!

We are proud to announce our Mandarin Chinese private grid virtual world development is moving along nicely. We are developing a replica of the Forbidden City, and will be building many of the modern monuments within China. This development consists of 6 side by side islands/sims that span multiple private grid servers. The development will be used to teach the Mandarin Chinese language via distance to children throughout the world. We are proud of our progress so far and will be excited to unveil the development once we are complete. Stay tuned into our blog to see this exciting custom virtual world development continue to take shape in the future. Until then check out the detail our developers have put into the project so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 We are proud to announce the development of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Library Virtual Headquarters. The structure was built to function as a meeting headquarters and public resource space containing links to all of the library's web content including a historical photo archive showcased in the building. The structure is placed on eduisland3 as part of an institutional grid of many different organizations. You may now view this development as they have opened it to the public. See: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%203/55/95/23

 

 

We are happy to announce that we broke ground on another virtual world project today. The space will be architecturally designed as a beautiful mansion in the south Hamptons. This space will be the virtual headquarters for the client and focused on training upper management at their corporation. This client will use the virtual space to deliver distance meetings, online collaboration, and online branch meetings. Surrounding this headquarters will consist of serious game based learning tools that will allow users to interact with the space while succeeding in company assessments. We are proud to break ground on this space and will keep posting to show you the progress throughout the development. Below is a picture of the new virtual word sim and our team preparing to start the build.

 

Note: Sean (far left avatar) was asked to reset his avatar after this picture was taken.

He should not be taller than Andrew as he is officially the shortest person in our office. LOL!

We are proud to announce that our talented team developed a dynamic pod like classroom building with the virtual world called Second Life. This development was created for one of our non disclosed clients. This virtual spaces is setup so that each classroom is on it's own separate parcel. That way any facilitator or teacher may stream video, or audio without disrupting the other classes.  We have added customizable features to this development for facilitators. These tools will allow them to do their jobs quickly and effectively within SL. Stay tuned to see what our team builds tomorrow!

 

 

 

We are at it again! We have broke ground on a very large OpenSim private server grid development. This development will be for teachers to conduct online lectures with their virtual classes. We are building this tool outside of Second Life so that we can have full control over the system. The virtual world will have a learning management system tied into it which will allow teachers to track the students progress throughout the classes, and allow them to take their tests within this virtual world. We are building this custom virtual world to help support the large audience (around 800 concurrent users by 2010) that will be on these grid servers. We look forward to building this very large simulator (roughly around 6 sims connected) for our client. Be on the look out for new blog posts from our team to see the project come alive!

 

 

 

 

 

Designing Digitally is proud to announce our acceptance into the Second Life Gold Solution Providers program with Linden Lab. Of the more than 250 organizations and companies in Second Life, Designing Digitally has been selected as one of the top 31 to be apart of this program. As a member of the Gold Solution Providers we will be in direct contact with Linden Lab, along side the other development teams, in bringing all users an even better Second Life. This short list of developers will help push the creation and evolution of islands in Second Life to the next level and we are very pleased to be a big part of this exciting virtual community.

Congrats to our friends at ThinkBalm! They have published a ground-breaking new research report: “ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009.”  Erica & Sam Driver set out to answer the core question:“What is the business value of using immersive technologies for work?” They surveyed 66 highly-qualified Immersive Internet practitioners and conducted 15 in-depth interviews.

Their research report contains their findings and analysis.

To view or download a PDF version of this 36-page report,click here.

We would like to announce we have a new position open at our design firm. Please see below:

 

Job Title: Junior Interactive Media Designer Location: Franklin, OH (between Cincinnati and Dayton) FT/PT: Part-time Job Level: Some Experience Required Working Hours: Approx. 25-30 hours M-F with some flexibility Do you love design? Being challenged? Working on new and exciting projects?Are you looking for a place to not only utilize your current skill set, but to add to that skill set as well? If you enjoy working in a casual, yet professional atmosphere, enjoy being challenged and working in several different mediums, as well as thrive under the pressure of tight deadlines, this may be the job for you! Designing Digitally, Inc. is a small, growing company looking for a talented, goal-oriented self-starter who has the ability to incorporate the best design and technology practices to provide cohesive support of all business divisions which include Graphic Design, Web Design & Development, E-learning, and Virtual World Development. Job Duties May Include (but are not limited to):

·         Develop layouts for Websites and Web-based training modules using programs such as Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop

·         Edit and manipulate catalog developments using Adobe InDesign

·         Create Graphic Design pieces as required (banners,  posters, flyers, etc.)

·         Develop Content Management Systems using Open-Source Applications such as Drupal

·         Create Flash interactivities/animations to support Web-based training modules or interactive activities and games using Adobe Actionscript 2.0 and 3.0

·         Quality Control/Quality Assurance over concepts and projects

Qualifications Required:

·         Degree in Interactive Design or similar field (recent graduates encouraged to apply)

·         Experience in Graphic Design

·         Positive/CAN DO attitude with a willingness to pitch in and help whenever necessary

·         High attention to detail a must

·         Strong time management skills important

·         Ability to take a project from start to finish with little supervision

·         Strong prioritization and decision-making skills in a tight-deadline environment

·         Proven ability to multi-task and work on several projects at once

·         Ability to interact with clients both written and verbally in a professional manner

·         Strong understanding of the importance of excellent Customer Service

·         Willingness to put in extra hours if required to meet a deadline

·         Ability to learn quickly and adapt to new tools and techniques extremely important

·         Experience in the following: HTML, CSS, FLASH, XML, CS3/CS4

·         3D Modeling experience a plus

·        .NET,  PHP,  MySQL experience a plus

If you think this may be the job for you, we want to hear from you! Send us your resume and portfolio, as well as your availability M-F.
TO APPLY: Send a copy of your resume and portfolio via email to jobs@designingdigitally.com with the subject stating "Junior Interactive Media Designer".