The Invisible Train

Digital_Quartz writes "Students at the Vienna University of Technology have come up with an augmented reality game in which players control virtual trains on a real wooden track. Players can adjust railway switches, and must prevent the trains from colliding. The catch is, of course, that the trains don't exist; they are viewed and controlled using networked PDAs with cameras. The system is based on the custom Studierstube framework for creating augmented reality applications for handhelds."

On the right track..

[everyplace]

But how are they going to train people to use this? Oh wait...

glitch?

[Lust]

Anyone notice that the right-most switches in this image [studierstube.org] are not synchronized between the two PDAs? Oops. Maybe I'm being picky...but if you're going to kludge a photo-op, get it right! :)

Re:glitch?

[phantomas]

well observed ;)

Everyone who's ever attempted to take a decent photograph of a handheld's (or mobile phone's) display knows that it's next to impossible to get acceptable color and contrast. (check out our original photo: http://studierstube.org/invisible_train/images/inv isible_train_01_low_contrast.jpg [studierstube.org]) . So I just pasted in screenshots acquired directly from the PDAs' framebuffers. But apparently, I screwed up ;) I'm not going to fix it, though -- most people won't notice anyways.

Re:glitch?

[Lust]

That's hilarious...thanks for the follow-up. I totally understand ;)

This was at Siggraph

[spitzak]

This was on display in the "Emerging Technologies" display at Siggraph in August 2004 in Los Angeles. The display was quite popular, though I did not try it. But a lot of people should have more to say about it than I have seen here so far...

Cool

[Lord_Dweomer]

Cool stuff. Here's a direct link [studierstube.org] to the video on the website showing the tech off. Good video, and the brunette girl Karin is really hot.

Re:Cool

[kyrah]

Name's kyrah :p