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The Archives
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02.13.08Bionic Eyes on the HorizonYour eye may soon be home to a virtual universe.Engineers at the University of Washington in Seattle have revealed they have successfully created a flexible contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. In practical terms, this could assist drivers and pilots, who could receive information such as weather and route conditions sent to this screen that would overlay the eyeball. In impractical terms, however, the possibilities of this technology for visual stimulation are far-reaching, as new games or 3D worlds could be developed directly for this small virtual display
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02.03.083D Models from Still PhotosStanford University has developed a program that has a 65% success rate in translating 2D photos into 3D models. Taken a step or two further, you can imagine taking a photo, converting to a 3D mesh, and easily uploading to Google earth, into a modeling program for tweaking, and importing into virtual worlds. The real comes to the virtual just as the virtual is starting to arrive in the real.
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02.01.08Augmented Reality: Merging the Virtual and RealSean Fitzgerald summarizes a few examples of integrating virtual worlds and objects with the real, picking up on the work out of Georgia but also showing an example of integrating virtual 'feeds' into video feeds. The following demo shows integration of animated/virtual objects, and you can imagine applications for education. Rather than using a green screen approach to capturing a video feed and then layering Flash or animation layers (either on the fly or in post-production), this allows live capture. Really interesting work, and combined with the "virtual glasses" from Georgia yet more evidence that the terminology of virtual worlds will continue ...
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01.02.08Virtual Worlds: Overlay on the RealThe term Metaverse is meant to elevate our thinking beyond game environments and "3D virtual worlds" and remind us that the ability to walk through information can be both immersive and augmented. In other words, to highlight that the metaverse is inclusive of both immersive 3D worlds and the overlay of information over the world itself (which is, of course, 3D already!) With the new year prognositcators (myself included) already proclaiming 2008 the year of virtual worlds, better to make a quick amendment and call it the Year of the Metaverse, because the real kicker might come out of augmented reality. Great ...
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