On December 15 2010 Inglobe Technologies released the new version 2.0 of the ARmedia Augmented Reality Plugin for Google SketchUp and Autodesk 3ds Max. Thanks to AR-media™ Plugin v2.0 users can now enjoy the potential of Augmented Reality technology by means of a plenty of new and useful features inside their preferred 3D modeling software .
As it is widely recognized, ARmedia Augmented Reality Plugin allows users to visualize and study their 3D creations directly in the physical space that surrounds them through a suitable visualization interface. The new version of the software enhances and completely replaces the former ones by adding new and useful features that allow users to design complex and astonishing Augmented Reality scenes, and to manage a variety of parameters that are crucial in the workflow of every AR project.
“The new version of the ARmedia Plugin is conceived as an easy-to-use, practical and cost-effective tool for the creation of compelling Augmented Reality scenes in association with SketchUp and 3ds Max” declared Graziano Terenzi, CEO at Inglobe Technologies, “With this new version we wanted to provide users with a series of new high-level features that could enhance the degree of interactivity and immersivity of the software, while at the same time making it accessible to a growing number of people”.
Among the new supported features we can mention the following: a marker creation utility that allows the creation of custom augmented reality markers, support of multiple markers, the possibility to export independent augmented reality files that can be viewed with the Free ARmedia Player on any computer, an antialiasing filter that enhances the visual appearance of the 3D models.
But the most interesting novelties introduced in the new version of the software are the possibility to create “Occluder Objects” and the so called “Light Debug Mode”. What is an object occluder? In standard augmented reality applications, when a 3D model passes behind another object in the real world, it will always be displayed superimposed to the real object even if the latter should hide it in the observer’s view, thus creating a completely unrealistic effect. By introducing occluders objects with ARmedia Plugin 2.0 users will be able to create invisible virtual objects that mirror the structure of the real world scene, thus hiding the 3D content the right way in the observer’s view. On the other hand, the “Light Debug Mode” is an option that extends user’s control over the tracking algorithm in such a way to adjust the quality of target’s recognition and tracking as a function of the lighting conditions in the real world scene.
You can check the videos below.
With regards to available licenses, another important novelty is the release of a “Personal Learning Edition”. This is a free but partially limited version of the software that can be downloaded by anyone who wants to learn the basics of AR without the need of writing a line of code.
All you need to make AR-media™ Plugin work is a personal computer and a webcam. The Plugin supports also a wide variety of Head Mounted Displays, like for example Vuzix® CamAR, eMagin, i-glasses™.
More information here:
www.inglobetechnologies.com/sketchup_plugins.php
www.inglobetechnologies.com/3dsmax_plugins.php
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