Monday, September 28, 2009

Augmented Reality

Last week, we had a guest speaker in one of my classes. He was discussing IMC and how it applies to advertisers today. During his presentation, he started talking about augmented reality. Nobody really knew what it was or how it worked. I thought this would be a good time to post a simple explanation of what it is.

Basically, augmented reality, is a live direct view of the real world with virtual computer generated images. Think of the yellow first-down line that you see when you watch football. The technology has been around, but advertisers are starting to use this technology to help create more interactive experiences.

The video above:

On the front, it is a normal business card (...) the rear is printed with a QR-code, one of those square, mosaic bar codes. Next to that is an AR (augmented reality) marker, a blocky black shape for tracking the card’s movement. (...) When the lucky recipient puts the card in front of their computer (and fires up the Flash-based software), the card’s info is read by the webcam and they enjoy a 3D experience overlaid onto the card.

Click here to read more about the video above.

Related: More reading on Augmented Reality at HowStuffWorks.

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