PopSci Augments Reality

Visually appealing ! Imagination exists everywhere as exhibited by the folks at popsci magazine.

Very interesting! I saw the magazine cover and decided to try this out.

I downloaded the cover and printed it on my HP Color laserjet 2605. Just make sure your webcam (mine is a Logitech 4000) is connected (But do NOT turn on your webcam software, it will conflict with the 3D app) just let the website launcher app take control of your webcam.

Hold your Magazine cover or the downloaded printout up to the camera for a few seconds. And, the 3D effect will happen automatically. This 3D app is a HUGE systems hog. It take almost 98% of your computer resources to run when active. I guess it needs that much to track the movements of the cover in realtime.

Nonetheless, the app does what it claims. I am interested to see what other things you can do with this technology. One things for sure, PopSci "did encourage" us to interact with our computer and printed publications at the same time in a new way.

My wife had a great Big laugh watching me try to get this app to work the first time. I was waving the paper around, bending and folding it all sorts of ways, and blowing at the webcam trying to make it launch. (That was before I realized the Logitech application was actually conflicting with the 3D Launcher.)

I would have preferred to just press a button and receive the same effect. Show the cover with a click here icon and out pop the turbines. It's no better than google sketchup except it's harder to control.

If an image had come out of the magazine it would have been amazing, but having to hold something in the material world in order to see something in the virtual is not very impressive.

Would you like some cheese with your whine?

I haven't been able to get this to work on my macbook, it says its loading in safari but does nothing, and it keeps crashing firefox. Is this PC only, or am I missing a step?

No it's not PC only, the link above has another link to youtube, and that video is displaying a Mac as doing the magic...

it's possible the integrated video card in your Macbook can't handle the stress...

@visualize > Perhaps you are referring to a Popup book...? Something like this http://bit.ly/15tB7V (Caution it's "Alien" gory) Also, if we are at the point where we have virtual "items" come into the material world, we wouldn't need clumsy PCs/laptops/hand-helds to communicate or to do any work. It'll be like "The Matrix" in reverse.

Hmm, it definitely works on my mac. popsci.com/imagination, don't try opening your webcam on your mac, let the site connect to your webcam instead.

I think the "blowing into the microphone" to create wind to power the turbines is awesome. But I don't really think holding up the magazine cover to a camera to get the background is really all that cool.

http://community.webshots.com/user/suzyjenkins/messages

I got it to work on my PC by using the GE "more 3d holograms" and printing out the "solar panel"; but it sure wouldn't work for me with the PopSci cover link, all I got is a 2" x 2" bright blue square. Augmented reality is pretty cool; just right for an amusement park:)

ok, this is a really cool feature that they added just for fun. Keep em comin!

I could not get this to work with my magazine cover but it did work with the printout.

Still waiting on my copy????

I keep getting a Shockwave error telling me there are errors in the movie and Shockwave can't continue.

I have a really cheap webcam from Asda - I need to upgrade because all I can see is shadows. I think I might go and buy the hard copy in my lunch hour tomorrow. This is the future of magazine covers for sure!
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If we could get everyone to wear those glasses that project an image infront of you, i could augment my yard to look freshly cut so i wouldnt have to mow it.

Tried it out and it works great. The tracking around the screen works pretty well too. My webcam isnt that sensitive, but it did alright.

http://beecherbowers.com

Don't have a copy of the magazine? Go buy one! (Or, OK, you can also download and print a PDF from the augmented reality page.) Don't have a webcam? Can't help you there -- but surely you know someone who does.

http://www.aindir.com/