Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Exhibit Design Inspiration: LEGO Box Augmented Reality



Imagine holding up a building toy to a "magic screen" to find out what the completely assembled LEGO structure would look like --- even with animated mini-figures!

That's what LEGO and augmented-reality (AR) company Metaio came up with the "LEGO Digital Box" (LDB) program.  A user just holds and turns a box in front of a screen to see the "augmented" image of the finished toy appear on top of the box they're holding.

I really like the potential of doing installations like these in museums related to collections objects. (Hopefully if they build enough "LEGO boxes" the price of the technology will come down into museum range.)

So head out to a LEGO or big-box toy store near you to try out this cool AR idea! (Or check out the YouTube video below that shows the LDB in action.)




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5 comments:

  1. Hi Paul,

    Qualcomm will soon release a free AR Software Development Kit. You'll see more AR applications (for your phone) in the future. I'm certain of it.

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  2. Hi Paul

    at the ECSITE conference earlier this year I saw a Dutch company showing a product to do exactly what you're suggesting: http://www.museumsolutions.com/

    It's not a cheap product (in the order of 25,000 Euros) but it worked well and seemed to offer a lot of scope for customisation. Unfortunately, I don't have 25,000 Euros to spend on something like this right now...

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  3. Thank you for the post. Phenomenal Technology!

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  4. Wow, that is amazing! It's amazing how far technology has come!

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  5. 3d technology is incredible. Pretty soon you can go check out a store from your couch.

    art museum

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