The Smartphone Thread

[Captain Utopia]

Augmented Reality app. The idea right now is simple: use the internal GPS, compass, and three-access accelerometer to determine the position and orientation of the camera on the phone, look for 3d objects in the current 'skin' that would be visible, and put them in the place configured and at the size and orientation determined from the phone's gps, compass, and accelerometer readings, with a transparency level based on distance. In this way, you can 'skin' reality, by sticking three-dimensional images on top of the camera preview of real reality.

It reminds me a bit of an article which went through slashdot a few weeks back about software which constructed and tweaked a point-cloud in real time then skinned that with textures obtained from the raw video - this was on a regular desktop machine. But presumably you'd need to solve some of the same problems but on a slower processor?

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Augmented Reality app. The idea right now is simple: use the internal GPS, compass, and three-access accelerometer to determine the position and orientation of the camera on the phone, look for 3d objects in the current 'skin' that would be visible, and put them in the place configured and at the size and orientation determined from the phone's gps, compass, and accelerometer readings, with a transparency level based on distance. In this way, you can 'skin' reality, by sticking three-dimensional images on top of the camera preview of real reality.

It reminds me a bit of an article which went through slashdot a few weeks back about software which constructed and tweaked a point-cloud in real time then skinned that with textures obtained from the raw video - this was on a regular desktop machine. But presumably you'd need to solve some of the same problems but on a slower processor?

Not particularly, actually. The android java environment has a couple really interesting features: specifically, you can make a transparent content pane layered on top of an existing content pane, and you can draw openGL objects on any pane. More or less, I'm just taking the camera preview app, sticking a transparent pane over it, and drawing openGL objects on that transparent pane. The real work is determining what GPS coordinates would be in the range of the camera based on GPS coordinates, the compass, and the rotation of the phone (from the accelerometer) and how much to scale them -- and doing so without using a lot of division (since ARM chips lack hardware division).

EDIT: Realized I didn't quite answer your question.

I'm going way out of my way to avoid trying to do any processing with a raw live video stream. It will be messy to code (I don't know enough about image recognition to do it sanely), and it will be quite slow. Without it, I can map 3d objects on top of 'real' objects reasonably well -- probably some jitters, and if the compass or accelerometer glitches or the GPS loses accessibility you will probably get some artifacts -- but it will be far faster, and much easier to code. We'll see if it's 'good enough' when I own a device and test it out -- it might cause VR sickness in some situations.

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

Augmented Reality app. The idea right now is simple: use the internal GPS, compass, and three-access accelerometer to determine the position and orientation of the camera on the phone, look for 3d objects in the current 'skin' that would be visible, and put them in the place configured and at the size and orientation determined from the phone's gps, compass, and accelerometer readings, with a transparency level based on distance. In this way, you can 'skin' reality, by sticking three-dimensional images on top of the camera preview of real reality.

You could probably get a relatively cheap used HTC G1 these days.

Yep, BAM:
http://www.google.com/product_url?q=http://tracking.dotcells.com/cell_phones/49f63b0e9f74f/6aa9544c.html%3Fdata1%3DHTC_G1%2520Android_Black_UN_1&fr=AG541GWVcHmkId8VTSCwkTXhl48ks-YQQT9GocfKr8El7e_ZdSenmt4JX4nEX-mwlAnGb14dz9xqKVF5iAVtynu6VBdnkcRn6mAC3HJrFxAC1y8ujyyuMYjLNWO1buDitXA-p_ANh_Jlz-OdaQaleYKJWW1mOZIwTdMvOeLa7-mNGmk6if45rhVhS3tsCEZU6yj63E--FPceAAAAAAAAAAA&gl=us&hl=en&sa=title

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

[Triple Zero]

looks like someone has never heard of the visual wonder of a thing called a "bar chart" ...

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

...is that like a chart about drinking?

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

Resistive screens poised to make a big come-back?

http://mobileosnews.com/?p=1223

[Jasper]

I have an ipod touch, jailbroke it, and love it.  Except that it isn't that good at picking up faint wi-fi signals, and free games kill the battery and generally stink.

Cool thing is that when I do have wi-fi, it does skype.  I plan to get a headset for it eventually.

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

Felix: You can actually get some headsets for pretty cheap. Like under $20.

Also, stand by for a comically bad comparison chart:

[Captain Utopia]

Why is that a bad chart?

Wife got a new phone gifted for Christmas. Locked down cheap piece of crap. Grrr. I dunno, I realise I have an abnormal anger with regards technology which some bastards have put in extra effort to lock down and prevent me from using the equipment I own to its full potential.

But anyway, I want a smartphone I can do anything with, even if I end up being too busy/lazy to do anything other than make calls with it. So the comparison chart is interesting as android looks like it could be the way to go for me - depending on the level of openness.

[Jasper]

There are a lot of really jizzerific toys out lately, but I'll wait for 2011 to think about buying a really real smartphone.  Just because I want AR to be more mature at first impressions, and I cannot abide low-res phone cameras any longer.

[Triple Zero]

Um can't you go to some shady place and have a Turkish dude unlock it for you for ten bucks or so?

Granted, it's still too much cause it costs them absolutely zilch once you know the codes, but it's a lot less hassle than googling it for yourself.

Or are American phones not so easily unlocked?

[Jasper]

Huh?

I have an iTouch.  It doesn't have real phone tools, or even a camera.  It's already jailbroken.  A monkey could do it, but it can only do VOIP, and even then only over wifi.

[Captain Utopia]

I meant locked down in the sense of not being able to install my own OS/applications upon it, without having to worry about the carrier getting pissy and terminating my account, etc. Though I'm so out of the loop that I'm probably using the terminology incorrectly.

[Cramulus]

yeah, what does locked vs unlocked mean? humor me, my cell phone is basically a brick with some numbers drawn on, but I am pricing smartphones