AR.js Custom Markers - augmented-reality

I am new to WebAR, but I have experience with building AR scenes with Unity3D and software such as Vuforia and 8thWall.
I have a question with the markers with AR.js. Why are they stuck with the thick black border? Is the software not able to just recognize a unique image like how Vuforia and Wikitude works? I apologize for how naive I may be when it comes to WebAR, however, I see this as an issue for the adoption rate of this technology if developers cannot use truly custom images and patterns. Is there a solution available that I may have missed somewhere? What happens if someone deletes/erases the big black border on the marker? Does it still work?
Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this!

Ar.js uses artoolkit and therefore is marker based. If you want to use it, there is not much you can do about it. Still You can have unique images inside the black box but not much else.
Worth mentioning, it is possible to make the borders thinner, there's even a branch - work in progress worth looking into.
Aframe-argon tried integrating aframe and vuforia, but i'm not sure if it's up to date.

Related

Add sunflare kind of lighting effect on image

I am looking for sunflare kind of lighting effect on Image. In my case light source is bulb instead of Sun. And I understand that changing light source changes rays effect and even different type of bulb produces different type of light beams.
Here is an example of focus light : http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/focus-light/
I have looked into standard photo filters and OpenCV but we didn't find something obvious. I am looking for approach and direction to achieve it.
My knowledge is limited to iOS business apps only. I have heard only name of frameworks like OpenGL,SceneKit and MetalKit.So, I would prefer to have solution which fits into my knowledge stack but yes I would love to know all possible solutions.
Let me know if you want me to explain more.
Any help would be appreciated.

iOS - Detecting color combination on camera feed

I need to detect something like a barcode but colored on live video (I don't necessarily need tracking, it is optional).I could use OpenCV but I thought it is worth a try asking here. The problem with openCV is that I am not very familiar with the whole concept of image processing. The other problem is that I use swift in most of the time, and however I could write an Obj-C wrapper with the help of google, the fact that OpenCV is written in C++ does not help at all, so maybe it would take too much time to use OpenCV.
Do you know any SDK-s that could help me in that? (It is not a problem if it is not free)
EDIT:
To be clear. By "something like a barcode" I mean that it is colored and instead of the width of the bars the colors are what metter.

SCNLight cast shadow in all direction

Suppose we have a room where the lamp is right in the middle of the room, both vertically and horizontally. How can it cast shadows in all directions? Is there anyway to fake it? I have objects that move. SCNLightTypeSpot can cast shadows in a cone, but that doesn't work in this situation.
Your best bet it to have multiple lights.
As Toyos said, a light that shines in every direction is an omni light, but considering the shadow rendering technique used (pretty much, a camera).
If you are comfortable with OpenGL, you could implement it easily. There a re resources online on how to approach it such as this GPUGems article about cubemaps or this more recent paper for a new technique using paraboloids.
You could also suggest these to Apple engineers using the bug reporter! I'm sure a lot of games and applications would benefit from Omnidirectional shadows.
What you would need is an omni light that supports casting shadows. As the documentation of "castsShadows" says, this is currently not supported by omni lights. You should file a bug request to Apple.

How to zoom a circular region with Cocos2d?

I am working on a Cocos2d project for iPad and iPhone, and now I need to develop something that looks too small for iPhone.
My first approach was to redesign it to make it possible to look bigger, but then I though that a region zoom effect would be great. The bad point is that I don't know how to do it... I really don't know what would be the correct/best approach to do it.
I have already checked out the Cocos2D CCLens3D build in effect, but it doesn't give me the results I want.
I would love to get the same result than when you long-press a textview/textfield on the UIKit:
Thanks in advance for your help!
If your still looking for a solution:
http://rombosblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/magnifierglassforcocos2d/
Uses CoreGraphics to render. Although this implementation works (requires some tweaking), I found that it lacked that Gaussian distribution effect I was looking for and was quite expensive if you updated the magnifying effect in a small interval.

Animated 2d Map Desktop Widget

I need to animate some vector icons smoothly moving about a 2d map. I have time-lat/lng pairs forming tracks. Down the road I would really like to be able to convey various GIS data like topography and roads on the map along with my smoothly animated icons.
Any suggestions on what to use? I find things like Quantum GIS but it seems geared to generating static maps. I've tried messing around with KML but I cannot find any way to make things move smoothly: marker icons clearly bounce along the waypoints even when I space them very closely.
EDIT: clarified I'm interested in a desktop widget
Animation options are limited in GIS as far as I am aware.
ESRI's ArcObjects could be used to create animations - see this chapter in the online help:
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=An_overview_of_animation
and these examples (however none have vectors moving around):
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=Sample_animation_videos
ESRI software is expensive to purchase, and users would also need the software if you wanted to provide more than an exported video.
You are probably best working with WPF (is this widget for Windows?), Silverlight, or Flash. ESRI have a Silverlight example here:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/showcase/GIS_Silverlight.aspx
There is also the following collection of WPF classes for the OpenSource SharpMap:
http://wpfsharpmapcontrols.codeplex.com/
However it seems very much in beta at this stage.
Alternatively it may be easier to use GIS software solely to provide a background image, and do all the animation elsewhere.
I would say, try this animation code for Google Earth; however, try emailing the osgeo or qgis userlists and they'll guide you

Resources