If Augmented Reality, Then Perform!

In the last months I have seen so many AR “campaigns” that I can not list them here – anyway there might be a list with the top 10 top 50 lists out there. Quite a few gave me “kinglike content”, “a unique (gaming) interaction / sharing function” or “at least a stable and robust AR product experience”. Thus I wouldn´t have a too long list because most of them are underperforming in some or all the essential and crucial criteria a good AR marketing measure is made off. And last but not least: the optical reference is created especially for the microsite. It´s an extra piece of paper! I think, that as long there is print out there – and this will not change too soon – we can enhance existing products, flyers, books, magazines or whatever with an augmented reality experience. On top. You should use it to connect print products with websites and have elements for conversion. Well, you need a good feature tracking for that, unless you don´t want barcodes as a full page design element. (Of course I do exclude putting the print reference ALSO as a PDF on the site, for the online-only people.)

But back to the technical part, that´s more our playground… Please, and I mean, PLEASE, consider Shockwave the next time you are selling web based augmented reality to your customer! You have a brilliant, native renderer. You can create appealing, high-resolution content people are willing to see, just like a quicktime, that is clicked, although people have seen a movie before (don´t come with that novelty-only approach, AR is a medium, nothing more, but nothing less). You have all the capabilities of the Director and can get in physics engines, your own game scripts or all the other existing Xtras. And most important: the application will perform well. There´s hardware rendering for smooth and high-speed and there´s a stable tracking. The engine won´t moan, it will purr. Compare FlashAR with Shockwave AR and you will know, what I mean.

For your evaluation I can provide you with the latter technology, as a movie directly here and as the tool, right here.

 

Vote For junaio At Mashable`s Open Web Awards

Come on, you faithfull fellas. Vote for Nominate junaio, spread the word! So all you beta testers out there – if you liked it, go for it. And when the app is finally out in the store, well, you´re welcome to join in untill November 19th

And please find the author of this blog now also at the junaio blog

Do Good Research And Talk About It

As we are part of the research project AVILUS, which is funded by the german federal government, with the goal to develop, evaluate and implement virtual and augmented reality techniques to various industries, we were also part of the new media project by the federal ministry for education and research. The goal is to make the reserach in germany more visible. Said and done, here is the (german only) video. Please take special notice of the 3D tracking part starting at timecode 2.30!

http://www.ideen-zuenden.de/de/857.php

From Metropolis* To Interactive Websites

BUZZIN MONKEY, die agentour and metaio were once again successful with the „World premiere of the new MINI Convertible” and have won an ANIMAGO Award  2009 – one of the most renowned CG awards in Europe. Blending 3D data onto a print ad with augmented reality convinced the jury in the category “Best interactive production”. The price was handed out at the ANIMAGO Conference in the FX-center of the Babelsberg Studios on Thursday evening. It was nice and inspiring to be on the conference and on stage with Paul Kanyuk a technical director of Pixar or Tim Borgmann from “Infected” – a very friendly 3D artist, who won an ANIMAGO for this fantastic project. So I proudly present once more the making-of of a campaign which was the first in a long row in 2009 to bring augmented reality home:

* A remastered version of this piece of movie history, which was produced in the Babelsberg studios,  will be presented at this years international film festival in Berlin!