Working with mobile, 3d and augmented reality is nothing completely new, but still fun! We have worked on applications in the past that use Unity and Qualcomm’s Augmented Reality SDK, but this is our first time trying it out without a 3d application to assist us.
The Qualcomm Augmented Reality SDK has been around for about a year now (that we have known about it), it now works with iOS and Android. There are packages available for Unity 3D and for use directly with each OS’s development environment.
We started this experiment by taking a bunch of photos and stitching them together with AutoDesk PhotoFly. From there we touched up some of the stitching and exported an OBJ and a JPG material. We ran the OBJ through a perl script that converts OBJ files to Open GL and had to flip the material around in Adobe Photoshop (lots of trial and error in the Android SDK to discover the UV Map was backwards and upside down).
Finally, we searched the very helpful Qualcomm forums and found how to use our model and texture in the Android SDK. A couple of quick customizations and voila ! We had an image-based marker system using our business card that loaded in a 3d representation of us.
When we get a chance to build this out full, it will be able to distinguish our different business cards and display unique information and 3d profiles for every person’s card. We have had a great time thus far working with the SDK and with PhotoFly, it was definitely easier to work in Unity 3D but who likes to take the easy way out?
FYI, that is a QR code on the card and not the marker itself. We are using the full image of the business card as the marker.
I think this is a very inventive way to use Project Photofly. I think it turned out well.