Tobias Alexander Franke

Augmented vs. Spatial Augmented

A quick note I wanted to make is about the difference between Augmented Reality and Spatial Augmented Reality aka Projection Mapping. The first is concerned with inserting objects or information into a real context with whatever means necessary. The second is a neat subset in the whole mixed reality field concerned with augmenting real surfaces with new properties.

Optix-based SAR setup from the University of South Australia at ISMAR 2013 Optix-based SAR setup from the University of South Australia at ISMAR 2013

In Spatial Augmented Reality or SAR, the real scene has some diffuse dummy objects made from Styrofoam or similar onto which, broadly speaking, a new BRDF is projected. That’s right, SAR changes the appearance of real objects by computing a new image which is usually cast onto the object with a projector. Several problems have to be solved within SAR:

SAR is an interesting field when relighting real world objects to see them with different materials. In the video above for instance, one can preview a car in different colors before buying the real thing. A recent piece on Wired showed off an overhead projection into a sandbox tracked by a Kinect, where different heights in the sand will correspond to different layers of a landscape. Nevertheless, the next posts will not be on SAR, but I didn’t want to skip over this cool field.

 2013-12-13
 SAR Relighting
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