

Nearest Subway App Overlays Subway Directions On the Real World - vaksel
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/16/amazing-nearest-subway-app-alters-the-matrix-while-pointing-you-to-the-q/

======
iamwil
I've seen it demonstrated on Nokia devices before, but it's more available to
the public with an iPhone.

I find it clever that they were able to circumvent one major obstacle of doing
augmented reality. Usually, you need to interpret something about the video
view from the camera in order to figure out where to place the 3D models in
the scene.

Instead, they rendered it entirely ignoring the scene, and just used
orientation and distance to display the subway signs. That works great for
cities like New York or DC, where it's pretty much a grid with no dead ends.

~~~
mcav
Which, in a way, makes it seem less impressive to me. They could've dumped the
video feed, and it would function the same. So it's less augmented reality
than clever use of the accelerometer and compass.

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calambrac
The best thing about this is how simple it probably is underneath, and how
awesome it looks anyways.

Current user location and database of subway station locations. It's a small
enough list that you just rip through all of them and sort by distance.
Project badges onto a sphere/flat on a circle depending on the tilt of the
phone. Orient on compass location. Overlay display on video feed. Done.

There's no fancy image processing going on, no actual pathfinding, just a nice
combination of the new 3GS apis and publically-available data. Good show.

~~~
potatolicious
One caveat: The iPhone API does not allow for a live image overlay from the
camera. If you need a picture, you make the API call, Apple's own UI takes
over, and you get a file in return.

To get the "live overlay" you need to hook into undocumented API. Considering
how long we've been asking Apple for precisely this feature, I doubt it's
going to happen.

~~~
jcapote
I thought you could do this...[http://www.iphonehacks.com/2009/05/email-n-
walk-iphone-app-m...](http://www.iphonehacks.com/2009/05/email-n-walk-iphone-
app-makes-it-easier-to-write-email-while-walking.html)

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MrMatt
So is apple approving apps like this now? I was under the impression that they
made use of undocumented APIs, and as such, aren't getting into the app store?

If they are approving them, then I'm getting right on this bandwaggon!

~~~
nailer
Worth pointing out that Wikitude has been out for half a year on Android, with
documented APIs all round.

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malbiniak
Seems like everyone forgot to mention _this app has not yet been approved by
the App Store._

But yes, rad nonetheless.

~~~
brown9-2
Well I think the interest has more to do with how cool the underlying
technology is, the specific application is a little beyond the point.

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Elessar
This is an amazingly creative use of all the iPhone technologies, and New York
is one of the densest places in the world so this would definitely be very
helpful. It's not helpful for locals (who have the lines memorized), but for
travelers who get confused and turned around in the maze of skyscrapers...
this will be a great help.

I wonder if the technology is easily extensible to take new maps and
locations. Post that openly and watch the world start creating further
content... not just more subway maps, but more geographical locations
(restaurants, hotels etc).

Exciting!

~~~
jgrahamc
When I lived in New York I looked into mass producing a compass that was
marked "Uptown/Downtown" (in place of North/South) and "Eastside/Westside" (in
place of East/West) with the North/South line correctly aligned at 29.8
degrees from the actual.

You can hand these to visitors and they'd instantly be able to tell which
direction to walk when stepping out of the subway.

~~~
asmithmd1
I smell an iPhone app. Uses GPS to determine what city you are in and then
displays direction in local terms. I want one. This could even work in Boston
where the North End is mostly east of City Hall and the South End is a couple
of miles west of South Boston

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clistctrl
Simply incredible, what devices inside the iphone allow it to extrapolate its
position so accurately?

~~~
Torn
GPS in a well-covered area is accurate to around 10m or so. Combine that with
a smartphone's internal compass and it knows what direction you are facing, so
can pop up a floating box in roughly the right direction. Simple idea, and
quite a nice indication of where things in the Augmented Reality space are
going.

*

Other augmented reality examples:

\-------

\- IBM 'Seer' app for Wimbledon 2009:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VZoDmqcZ34>

\- Google Sky map for android:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6znyx0gjb4&eurl=http%3A%...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6znyx0gjb4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eaugmentedearth%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded)

\- US postal service using augmented reality:
[http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i388...](http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i388dc3328f74c5ee152e36f2b608b604)

\- Augmented reality t-shirt / twitter mashup:
[http://www.squidder.com/2009/02/17/papertweet3d-augmented-
re...](http://www.squidder.com/2009/02/17/papertweet3d-augmented-reality-t-
shirts/)

... and there's a lot more products out there - google for: ARSights /
D'Fusion / Layar / Project Natal / Releas3D / SixthSense / Wikitude

*

Development kits / APIs:

\-------

ARTag - <http://www.artag.net/>

ARToolkit - <http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/>

FlarToolKit - <http://www.libspark.org/wiki/saqoosha/FLARToolKit/en>

NyARToolkit - <http://nyatla.jp/nyartoolkit/wiki/index.php>

~~~
dschobel
Sure but getting a decent GPS fix in the metro canyons of big cities isn't a
given (even with A-GPS).

You could make a lot of money by solving the problem of how to reliably
determine location in major cities indoors and out (and not just relying on
known wifi-hotspot triangulation like skyhook does).

~~~
potatolicious
Just off the top of my head: Google can probably do this quite easily,
especially in an augmented reality application.

They already have street view data that's highly accurate, they also have
A-GPS data on roughly where you are. They can refine this by comparing the
image coming from your phone to known street view images... The computing
power behind this would be pretty insane though.

~~~
dschobel
Yeah, especially for a mobile device. It's a non-trivial problem and even your
solution has the problems as the skyhook solution. The data goes stale and
needs to be refreshed continually.

~~~
potatolicious
Change in landscape occurs more slowly than changes in WiFi networks. But
you're right - this is a particularly difficult problem to solve.

