Augmented reality comes with Autodesk Showcase

A very interesting technology comes to CAD world with the new plugin for Autodesk Showcase 2013 released on Autodesk Labs - "Augmented Reality". Augmented reality is a live view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated input such as rendered 3D models (see Wikipedia - augmented reality).

Autodesk Showcase with the added plugin "Augmented Reality" is able to insert (key-in) a photorealistic 3D model from CAD applications in real-time into live video from a web camera or other video sources. And it automatically zooms and rotates the model simultaneously with any change of the camera view. This Python script uses an easily identifiable marker which is associated with the 3D model and can be found also in the scene (a printed QR code is used in the sample below, and is also included in the installation). The software then identifies and monitors any movement of this marker. The result is a compelling interactive visualization which fits the proposed CAD model to the real scene and allows to explore this new "augmented reality" from any angle.


if you are impatient you can watch the video from 4:30 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p0eKdBKFkg

The 3D visualization tool Autodesk Showcase 2013 is a part of almost all Autodesk Design Suites so many users can use it immediately. The plugin "Augmented Reality for Autodesk Showcase" can be downloaded for free from labs.autodesk.com/utilities/showcase_ar, the current version expires October 31, 2012.

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