Funded Projects
Office of Tomorrow
2005 - 2008, FFG - FHplus, voestalpine Informationstechnologie GmbH, Team 7
Collaborative Augmented Reality setups are becoming increasingly popular. Currently, we are developing a collaborative environment that is mainly designed for brainstorming and discussion meetings. Using a digital pen, participants can annotate not only virtual paper, but also real printouts. By integrating both forms of physical and digital paper, we combine virtual and real 2d drawings, 3d models, and digital data which are overlaid into a single information space. In cooperation with voestalpine Informationstechnologie GmbH and Team7, the Upper Austrian University of Applied Sciences is the main contributor to this project. The project started in September 2005 and will finish in September 2008.
| Office of Tomorrow Website |
Student Projects
Aroo
Master Thesis by Thomas Seifried, 2007
Aroo combines the benefits of the digital and the real world providing an augmented filing cabinet. The system benefits by linking the physical world with the digital desktop world. In our setup, we implemented a plugin for OneNote. On the other hand, real folders and cabinets are extended with devices for direct in- and output. This allows us to search and browse through digital documents by using OneNote. Simulatenously, our system also allows a feedback in the physical world, by highlighting the according folder in the filing cabinet.
Comino
Master Thesis by Jakob Leitner, 2007
Comino is a collaborative game for up to four players. In Comino the players have to solve puzzles using virtual and real domino blocks and custom built physical interfaces in order to complete the different levels. Using the wireless pen-interface and special tangible menus, players can “draw” lines of virtual domino blocks in order to connect a designated start domino block with the finish domino block. For some areas the user needs to switch to the real world using custom-built physical portals that allow a physical impulse to be “transferred” to the physical world and vice versa. For this game (in addition to the software), several game components had to be built in hardware, and interfaced with the computer using micro-controllers, servos and sensors.
PenTable
Master Thesis by Daniel Leithinger, 2007
The PenTable system combines a digital tabletop with standard PC interfaces like keyboard, mouse and LCD display for a multi-purpose workplace. In the setup, the digital tabletop is utilized as a peripheral display and direct pen input device. The thesis describes design and applications of PenTable and provides a detailed description of a special user-drawn graphical user interface (GUI) on the tabletop, which consists of sWidgets and pMenus. These elements have been custom designed for the specific requirements of direct input tabletop displays. The thesis also presents the results of a user-study which compares pMenus with standard pop-up menus on cluttered tabletops.
| Master Thesis, Daniel Leithinger |
Image Based Lighting in Augmented Reality Environments
Diploma Thesis by Peter Supan, 2006
This work presents an application which uses realtime captured Image Based Lighting with appropriate shadowing in Augmented Reality Applications. The system uses a mirrored sphere or a camera with a fisheye lens to capture the real environment. From these images environment maps for diffuse and specular lighting are created up to 60 times per second. Thus it is possible to render reflective objects and see the reflection of the real viewer in the virtual object. Moreover changes in the lighting of the real sourrounding immidiately affect the lighting of all objects. Realistic shadows are calculated by creating a dome of shadow casting lights and sampling the environment map to achieve correct shadow intensities.
Coeno One
Students Project by Daniel Leithinger, Jakob Leitner and Thomas Seifried, 2005
Coeno one is an around-the-table application designed for presenting a storyboard using tabletop technology in combination with augmented content. The goal of this project was to present new ways of interaction and communication for the next generation working in spaces. Coeno one offers a smooth integration of portable computers into a meeting room, where the table and walls are acting as an extended public display.
| Coeno Website |
Neon Racer - Augmented Gaming
Students Projects by Doris Bernert, Wolfgang Litzlbauer, Ines Stuppacher, Manuela Waldner and Markus Weilguny, 2005
Neon Racer is a multi-user Augmented Reality racing game adapting the simple and powerful gameplay of racing games to an AR tabletop setting. The game combines an intuitive and tangible interface with quality content. The active setting for the game is provided by the real world. Physical objects act as collision obstacles and influence the course of the race itself.
| Neon Racer Website |
Past Projects
AMIRE
2002 - 2004, IST2001-34024
The AMIRE -project was a Mixed Reality project sponsored by EU IST Programme. The project was about the efficient creation and modification of mixed reality (MR) applications. We developed an authoring tool (that is an MR application itself) in order to efficiently use MR in applications, to conceive new MR methodologies and exploit synergies when combining MR technologies in the AMIRE framework, and to establish authoring as a new application domain for MR. Two demonstrators (a training application for an oil refinery and a museum application together with MR authoring tools) have been implemented. The first by a group of experts in order to derive an initial version of AMIRE, the second by a consulting company as a kind of experiment in a business scenario setting that will seamlessly lead to an exploitation of AMIRE.
| Amire Homepage | |||
| Amire @ FH-Hagenberg |

