Tony Mullen - Prototyping Augmented Reality

Acquisitions Editor: Mariann Barsolo

Development Editor: Gary Schwartz

Technical Editor: John Nyquist

Production Editor: Dassi Zeidel

Copy Editor: Liz Welch

Editorial Manager: Pete Gaughan

Production Manager: Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher: Richard Swadley

Vice President and Publisher: Neil Edde

Book Designer: Caryl Gorska

Compositor: Chris Gillespie, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Proofreader: Candace English

Indexer: Ted Laux

Project Coordinator, Cover: Katherine Crocker

Cover Designer: Ryan Sneed

Cover Image: Tony Mullen

Copyright 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-118-03663-1

ISBN: 978-1-118-18005-1 (ebk.)

ISBN: 978-1-118-18007-5 (ebk.)

ISBN: 978-1-118-18006-8 (ebk.)

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Acknowledgments

Id like to thank Acquisitions Editor Mariann Barsolo, Editorial Manager Pete Gaughan, Development Editor Gary Schwartz, Technical Editor John Nyquist, Editorial Assistants Jenni Housh and Connor OBrien, Production Editor Dassi Zeidel, Copyeditor Liz Welch, and everyone else at Sybex who contributed to putting this book together. Im also very grateful to the dedicated software developers who contributed their time and effort to create the open source software used in this book, including the ARToolKit, NyARToolkit, Processing, Blender, and JMonkeyEngine developers. I want to single out Adam Clarkson, creator of ARMonkeyKit, in particular for his help with the content of this book.

About the Author

Tony Mullen, PhD, has a broad background in CG and programming. He teaches at Tsuda College in Tokyo, Japan, where his courses include Python programming as well as Blender modeling and animation. He has been a cartoonist and an illustrator; his screen credits include writer, codirector, and lead animator on several short films, including the award-winning live-action/stop-motion film Gustav Braustache and the Auto-Debilitator (2007). He is the author of Introducing Character Animation with Blender; 3D for iPhone Apps with Blender and SIO2; Mastering Blender, Bounce, Tumble, and Splash!: Simulating the Physical World with Blender 3D, and Blender Studio Projects: Digital Movie-Making , all from Sybex.

About the Technical Editor

John R. Nyquist is a Blender Foundation Certified Trainer (BFCT) and has created seven Blender and two ActionScript training videos for CartoonSmart.com, as well as 60 episodes of Bits of Blender. He has worked professionally using Blender/Python, Java, ActionScript, C++, C#, and Lingo for interactive multimedia. John has coauthored two books on Director/Lingo and has served as technical editor for books on Java, Director, and Lingo.

Introduction

Augmented Reality (AR) is a term used for a wide range of related technologies aimed at integrating virtual content and data with live, real-time media. The idea of AR is to mingle what is not really there with what is there as seamlessly as possible, and to present users with an enhanced, or augmented, display of the world around them. The nature of the augmentation could be anything from a textual display of data overlaid on real scenes or objects to complete, interactive 3D graphical scenes integrated into real ones.