Augmented Reality - Faceball

This time we're going to take a little side trip back into the fascinating world of Augmented Reality. Here's a movie demonstrating an interesting little experiment my team at Talking Dog Studios created a couple of days ago. It's a followup to our Expandar and Alice in Wonderland pages which use face tracking, for a form of Augmented Reality that doesn't require you to print out a marker. This one adds the marker back in now, which gives you another layer for possible interactions with the face tracking. By the way, you can find the Faceball page here if you want to try this out yourself.


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSGmlmtFmt0

As you'll see, this one works in different ways depending upon whether you have a marker visible to the webcam. We're calling the above video "Faceball Demo 1" because we see this as just the beginning for where this could lead. We're imagining all the fun characters that could be created using this technique, and possibilities for interactive story telling or gaming. Now check out "Faceball Demo 2".


A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKIv3Pt6zjI

This time, rather than using a ball, we're mapping the viewer's face in real time to a 3D head. Pretty unusual looking, wouldn't you say? Again, this is just an experiment, but we see some good opportunities coming up for where this idea could take us.

Please comment on the video over at youtube or here at the blog and let us know what you think. The augmented reality division of Talking Dog Studios is constantly working to hone its tool box and your feedback really helps us as we decide what avenues to pursue next. While we're at it, here's a few more Augmented Reality demos we've posted in the last little while:

How Big is the TV?
Shopping for a new big screen TV? This site lets you try out different models and sizes in your home before you go to the store. Or if you click on the "Buy Now" button you can see which retailer is offering the best price for a certain model. Go to www.howbigisthetv.com to try it out yourself.

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaGPpgDDrjM

Trend Face
With Imagining the Tenth Dimension, we're always talking about how memes rise and fall over time, creating shapes in the extra dimensions. "Trend Face" lets you look into your webcam and see what words are currently most popular in twitter, or display the latest tweets from a particular account or about a certain search term. If you see something you'd like to keep a memory of, click the photo button and immortalize the moment to your hard drive or share it with your friends on facebook. You can try this one out at www.talkingdogstudios.com/ar/trendface .

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-FBYT-PrSo

Augmented Reality Watch
Here's a page that demonstrates how AR could simplify watch shopping. There's a nice little bit of code in this one that allows the marker to disappear, by pasting a bit of the video either side of the marker over top of it in real time. We're expecting that a watch manufacturer is going to see this one and ask us to do an Augmented Reality store for them. If you want to try the demo out yourself go to www.talkingdogstudios.com/ar/watch .

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArXyFFr8n18

May all your days be augmented ones!

Enjoy the journey,

Rob Bryanton

Next - Vibrations