NMC Campus Observer

All the World’s An Augmented Reality Stage

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Jan 16, 2008 10:28am

Things just keep getting more interesting as people are finding ways to connect, mix, real life and virtual worlds. Why spend time in just one? The Augmented Reality Second Life project at Georgia Institute of Technology is doing some fascinating experiments with having things manipulated in Second Life appear live, moving, in real life… including SL avatars.

In this research project, we demonstrate that MMOs also provide a powerful platform for Augmented Reality (AR) applications. We introduce the notion of AR Stages, persistent, evolving spaces which encapsulate AR experiences in online three dimensional virtual worlds.

Based on the 3D virtual world Second Life, our custom client software blends together locations in physical space with corresponding places in the Second Life virtual space and leverages the power of the MMO to create an powerful AR authoring environment targeted at a wide audience and fields of application.

The “stages” concept is compelling, and infers something more akin to an art installation that is set up on a virtual stage in SL, but plays on a different stage in real life. They apparently have done some incredible modifications to the open source client to add the necessary camera controls.

But don’t just take our word, check out this demo video:

Thanks to our own Ravanelle Zugzwang for discovering this cool project!

Story filed under: Second Life News

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