8 March, 2009

Cyberpunk is here

John Nack reports on two instances of 'augmented reality', in which CGI interact with real-world objects.

For example, if one holds up a magazine advert to a webcam, software at the advertiser's website can overlay a 3D image of a car over the view of the advert: rotate & tilt the advert, and the car rotates & tilts.

The other example is of a simple animation triggered by software recognising a geometric shape on a variety of surfaces, from a business card (very William Gibson) to a forehead.