Registration Error Checking

Augmented Reality is far from perfect.  Although the Doritos concert-in-a-bag gimmick running rampant on Twitter the last few days is cool, many people do not understand that augmented reality has a major hinderence.  This hinderence is known as a registration error.

According to the University of North Carolina’s augmented reality lab a registration error comes about when “the real and virtual objects [are not] properly aligned with respect to each other, or the illusion that the two coexist [is] compromised.”

Institutions from around the world are currently tackling this problem.  I recently ran across one such project at Georgia Tech’s Augmented Environment Laboratory called Adaptive Intent-Based Augmentation System (AIBAS).

“The goal of AIBAS (a Adaptive Intent-Based Augmentation System) is to understand how knowledge of the communicative intent of an augmentation can be leveraged to simplify the creation of AR applications that work well in real-world situations with “good enough” tracking and registration. In this project, we hope to demonstrate how such knowledge can be used to reduce the impact of registration errors by supporting the programmer in creating augmentations that contain sufficient visual context for a user to understand the intent of the augmentation.”

In time registration errors will be a thing of the past; however, todays developers are still struggling with this aspect of the technology.  Now, go tell your friends what you learned!

ARToolKit

Many of you have probably already heard of the ARToolKit, but do you know what the source of the augmented reality software library is?  Enter HITLab and the SharedSpace project.

HITLab is a multifunctional research laboratory focused on Human Interface Technology.  SharedSpace is just one of the many projects that HITLab has pursued over the years.  And, the ARToolKit is a product of the project.

Today, many of the gimmicky uses of augmented reality use  toolkits like this.   Thank goodness HITLab gave us ARToolKit.

You can find more about the toolkit and its uses at HITLab’s page dedicated to its promotion here.

Tinmith Project

The Wearable Computer Lab (WCL) of the University of South Australia is a great research lab with many excellent examples of potential augmented reality applicaitons.  If you want to see some great things happening at an amazing labe look no further than WCL.

One of my favorite projects is ARQuake.  It’s exactly what it’s name says, an AR version of Id Software’s legendary game Quake.  Do not miss this.

One such application is with mechanics.  For example, during an inspection of an engine the mechanic has to check multiple point within the engine.  After each point the mechanic has to document his or her findings in a computer.  This can take a long time, especially when the inspection includes 20 or even 100 checkpoints.

With an augmented reality system the mechanic can simply look at the checkpoint, then record his or her findings with the system.  This is precisely what you see in the video above.

Imagine the possibilities!  Now any task can not only be worked through, but also documented without ever leaving the immediate environment.  And, this is exactly what the  research group has found:

“Opportunistic Controls allowed participants to complete their tasks significantly faster and were preferred over the baseline technique.”

It is a video about markers and “visual hints” technology.  Unlike many of the ads and sorta gimmicky things you may find today, “visual hints” technology can understand gestures.  Instead of merely having a 3D image rotate the program can understand that a gesture is being made and react to it appropriately.  See for yourself, it’s pretty cool stuff.

So what makes this technology so special?  Well, first off, this technology can teach people how to interact with objects designed for augmented reality.  Would you know how to rotate to the next image without the system “teaching” you what the gesture is to do so?  Or, how would you even know there is another image associated with the marker?  Simply put, this is a great way to teach people how to interact with the new augmented reality environment.