GART Geo AR Toolkit
submitted on: 11/10/2011Version: 1.0.1 | Release date: 10/18/2011
Project Description
GART was created to help people quickly and easily build Augmented Reality applications for Windows Phone.
This kit is different from other AR kits in that it enables what we call "Geo AR". Where other toolkits place virtual things on top of specially printed tags, this toolkit places information on top of real places in the world around you. It does this by tracking where you are and the direction you're facing.
Geo AR apps are easy to write because all you need to provide is a collection of objects that have Latitudes and Longitudes. These can come from anywhere, for example a Bing restaurant search, a Flickr photo search or a Wikipedia article search. The framework then takes care of managing sensors and tracking where the user is in relation to the reference points. It can show where the points are in relation to user from a top-down perspective (on a map) or it can show where the points are as a virtual lens into the real world.
The Geo AR Toolkit contains two samples that show how to build an app from scratch:
- SimpleAR - Simply adds labels around you in random locations. Look for "add locations" and "clear locations" in the application menu.
- BingAR - Uses Bing to display information about restaurants nearby. Displays the restaurant name, the type of food they serve and their average user rating.
Components included in the GART Geo AR Toolkit
1. AR Services
- PhotoCamera (for the background video feed)
- Location for Lat / Long positioning
- Motion for Heading / Attitude.
2. Views/Layers
- HeadingIndicator
- OverheadMap
- VideoPreview
- WorldView
3. Controls
- ARView - Implements the IARView interface as a set of dependency properties and bubbles any changes up as OnPropertyChanged overrides.
- ARRotateView - Inherits from ARView and adds the property RotationSource which can be set to North, TravelHeading or AttitudeHeading. It then provides a bindable Rotation property to be used in Xaml markup. HeadingIndicator and OverheadMap both inherit from this class.
- ARItemsView - Inherits from ListBox and implements IARView and IARItemsView. This base class can be used for building views that render the individual items to be displayed. WorldView inherits from this class.
Introduction Videos:
Additional Development Resources
NOTE: Feel free to add in the comments any article/content that you find interesting and is related to the GART Geo AR Toolkit. We will update the description regularly based on your feedback!
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