Prototyping Augmented Reality

The art and science of creating AR Augmented reality (AR)—placing virtual content over live video—has progressed from an emerging technology into one of today′s hottest interactive design trends. Artists and designers with little or no programming experience can quickly learn how to create AR using a variety of opensource and proprietary tools such as Processing programming language, Blender animation software, Arduino, Flash, and others. Covering the creation of AR for smartphones, Macs, PCs, and the web, this thorough guide is packed with smart software techniques, usable code, hardware pointers, modeling and prototyping basics, and more. AR is art and programming, and CG and programming expert Tony Mullen seamlessly blends both to help you create fun, effective, augmented reality. Move into AR, even if you have limited programming skills Get up to speed on the AR terminology and tools you′ll need Explore the essentials of Processing and 3D programming Learn Blender basics and design low–poly animated characters Create objects for an AR library and build and export 3D models Interactively link your AR to physical, virtual, and streaming environments Explore using ActionScript programming for browser–based AR Create AR for the Android platform and other smartphones (Far left) Get started with NyARToolkit for Android (Left) Create interactive Flash–based AR for the web www.sybex.com/go/prototypingar

Introduction xix Chapter 1  Getting Started with Augmented Reality 1 What Is Augmented Reality? 2 Tools and Technologies 6 AR Necessities 7 Chapter 2  Introduction to Processing 13 The Processing Programming Environment 14 Drawing in Processing 19 Working with Classes 25 Chapter 3  Blender Modeling and Texturing Basics 33 Modeling with Blender 34 Baking a Smooth AO Texture 54 Creating a Finished Texture with GIMP 59 Chapter 4  Creating a Low–Poly Animated Character 69 Texturing Your Low–Poly Alien 70 Rigging the Model 75 Keying a Simple Walk Cycle 79 Chapter 5  3D Programming in Processing 87 The P3D and OpenGL Environments 88 Working with OBJ files 92 Simple Animation with OBJ Arrays 98 Chapter 6  Augmented Reality with Processing 103 The NyAR4psg Library 104 Digging into the Sample Code 107 Controlling Transformations with Multiple Markers 112 Chapter 7  Interacting with the Physical World 121 Physical Computing with Arduino 122 Sensors and Circuits 125 Communicating Between Arduino and Processing 127 Chapter 8  Browser–Based AR with ActionScript and FLARManager 135 The FLARManager AR Toolset for ActionScript 136 Getting FLARManager Up and Running 137 Creating Your Own Projects 147 Chapter 9  Prototyping AR with jMonkeyEngine 165 Introducing JMonkeyEngine and ARMonkeyKit 166 Exploring ARMonkeyKit 174 Thoughts from the Developer 184 Chapter 10  Setting Up NyARToolkit for Android 189 Android and the Android SDK 190 NyARToolkit for Android 196 Going Further with Android 202 Appendix A  From Blender 2.49 to Blender 2.58 207 Basics and Views 208 Mesh Modeling 211 Texturing, Baking, and Materials 213 Rigging and Animation 216 Appendix B  File Formats and Exporting 221 Development Environments and File Formats 222 Exporting from Blender 223 Index 233

Tony Mullen , PhD, has a broad background in CG and programming. He teaches at Tsuda College in Tokyo, Japan, where his courses include Python programming, 3D modeling, and animation. He is the author of Introducing Character Animation with Blender , 3D for iPhone Apps with Blender and SIO2 , Mastering Blender , and Bounce, Tumble, and Splash!: Simulating the Physical World with Blender 3D , all from Sybex.