How to start writing an augmented reality application

Question

I have been looking at creating an augmented reality application. Can anyone suggest a preferred technology platform to start writing an application of this kind.

I would like this to be a desktop application and not a mobile application. Therefore I want to use a webcam with object recognition.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Your best bet is probably a cell phone of some kind.

I would go for Android. With the built in Accelerometer and GPS on Android phones, it won't be too hard to tag locations and detect if you are looking at them. You can then create an overlay ontop of the camera input to tag locations and the like. There are some people who have done similar things on this platform, so you might even get some help.

Good Luck.

Answer 2

I was at a conference last weekend where somebody demoed Goblin XNA. It's an extension to the XNA framework to support augmented reality. It certainly looked very impressive.

If your already familiar with .net it might be worth a look.

Answer 3

FLARToolKit is another good place to look. It's free and uses flash + Actionsctript 3. gotoandlearn DOT com has a couple good video tutorial on how to use the library, I'd give you links to them but stackoverflow says I'm not special enough for more than 1 url.

Answer 4

There is the Android and iPhone Augmented Reality dev kit. iPhone version here Android version here. Assuming you can program in obj-c or java, those should take some of the complicated math off your hands.