Augmented Reality Plug-in for Google Sketch-Up released

Francesco-inglobe · 28 Dec 2008, 13:14

Hi Malaise,
I'm Francesco and I work for the web area of Inglobe Technologies.
I do not speak English very well so I apologize in advance for any error.
However I think I can help you.

@malaise said:

The last test I've made: a hollowed cube with a glass face. I noticed the transparency disapears when exporting.

Assigning the material on both sides of the glass, the transparency should work.

Best regards
Francesco

pav_3j · 30 Dec 2008, 16:39

This is a real stunning piece of software, i am very impressed!

I suspect this has already been asked and has gone right over my head, if so i apologise.

I have to make a "fly-by" video for a uni project soon, could I make a video on site with the coded paper already on site and then use this program to implement the model onto it?
I'm really struggling to find a way of doing this convincingly, and this looks like a viable answer.

Pav

MALAISE · 30 Dec 2008, 21:21

Hi Francesco,

Despite,several trials I did'nt achieved to display transparent objects. I even made a non texturized
transparent color ,applied it on both faces as you suggest : no improvement. Well, i will survive .

Can we use the Plugin offline ? ( I mean the licensed version without been connected to the web ).

Best regards

MALAISE

Graziano Terenzi · 31 Dec 2008, 11:35

Hi Malaise, Hi Pav

To Malaise:
we are working to fix up minor transparecy issues. Of course we will upload newly updated versions when available. We recommend you always to download the latest version available.

With regards to offline use

@malaise said:

Can we use the Plugin offline ? ( I mean the licensed version without been connected to the web ). MALAISE

of course you can use it also when you are not connected to internet.

To Pav:

@pav_3j said:

I have to make a "fly-by" video for a uni project soon, could I make a video on site with the coded paper already on site and then use this program to implement the model onto it?
Pav

It seems that you would like to provide a previously recorded video as input to the plugin and then use it to display augmented content. Even if this function is fully supported by our ARmedia framework, we have not yet implemented it in the first version of this ARmedia plugin. It will be available in very short time. Most of all main improvements will be available soon with no additional cost to those who already have bought a license.

Last, I want to inform you that both a studentand an educational license will be released within the beginning of the new year.

Best regards and Happy New Year

Graziano

MALAISE · 1 Jan 2009, 18:06

Best wishes for 2009

Some feedback about licensed version. I displayed some model with ARPlugin, depending on, you 're connected or not, you get the unlimited one or the 30 s of the trial version with watermark. I wanted to show some friends this amazing tool, then I took my laptop outside, not linked to internet.The ARplugin worked on trial mode only, no chance to activate the license. I was told ID not recognized. Back home, all is well running, as far as you don't disconnect the Internet plug, then the next calculation switches ARplugin into trial mode.

I hope theses comments may help you

MALAISE

pav_3j · 1 Jan 2009, 23:50

cheers for the info inglobe!

i shall wait upon the updates....he he

Pav

Graziano Terenzi · 2 Jan 2009, 09:13

Hi Malaise,

thank you for your precious feedback. Actually there is a little problem with the licensing mechanism in very exceptional cases. It seems that your situation belongs to that small set. However we are fixing this too and we will upload a fixed version very soon.
Regards

Graziano

Jim · 4 Jan 2009, 00:23

Just a weird thought..

Instead of putting the model in the hands (or on the table, etc), is it possible to put ones self inside a model? Or maybe in front of a model? So if giving a presentation on a very large screen, for example a house model could be projected at actual size.

Maybe movements of the model could be pre-programmed, or controlled using some hand gestures, or something.

edit: Then he realized this could be done using straight Sketchup and a projector...

MALAISE · 4 Jan 2009, 06:29

Hi All

Another feedback, when interrupting a calculation before its achievement leads you to see a rotating Inglobe-marked cube . Only pressing <ESC> will send back to SketchUp "space".

MALAISE

Graziano Terenzi · 5 Jan 2009, 10:06

Hi Jim, Hi Malaise,

To Jim:

@jim said:

Instead of putting the model in the hands (or on the table, etc), is it possible to put ones self inside a model? Or maybe in front of a model? So if giving a presentation on a very large screen, for example a house model could be projected at actual size.

The idea of having a model at actual size and keep it fixed in a real environment while only the user is moving around is not a weird thought. Actually you could also arrange a situation like this using the ARplugin by

printing the marker at a suitable size,
setting a scaling parameter properly and
setting the right distance between camera and marker so as to focus on a significant part of the scene.

Of course this would not always be a practical solution. Indeed, issues of stability and effectiveness must be taken into account before trying to do this. Neverthless this can be accomplished by using the ARplugin as such with the forthcoming (very soon) scaling option set up.

With regards to animation, we can also think to animate the model. ARmedia allows animation, but it must implemented in association to Sketchup. Rather what you point out is something that resembles classical Virtual Reality, in which a user is immersed in a totally synthetic environment, moving around and sensing by means of suitable devices like a 3D mouse and an Head Mounted Display. This too can be done using ARmedia. Maybe we will introduce such a capability in a future upgrade.

To Malaise:

@malaise said:

Another feedback, when interrupting a calculation before its achievement leads you to see a rotating Inglobe-marked cube . Only pressing <ESC> will send back to SketchUp "space".

Actually we did not regard this as a problem. We have deliberatively introduced this standard visualization modality when calculation is interrupted. Anyway we can take into account the possibility to block this form of visualization for future versions. Let me know your thoughts about this, please.

Thank you again.
Regards

Graziano

plot-paris · 5 Jan 2009, 14:17

just tried out the plugin - what a fantastic tool!!!

in terms of scalability: it would be great, if you could use different settings, like the current system (a sort of 'fit screen' function) or 'to scale' options, where you set a desired scale (1:1, 1:100, 1:5000)

about the idea of several markers with dedicated models: would it make sense to use components for that? you can attach a lot of info to dynamic components already. maybe we could use several components within one model as separate entities.

the plugin would provide 'marker components', a rectangular component with the image of the marker as texture and the necessary info for the plugin attached. to link an element within the model to this marker, you select both and group them. the position of the marker-component in relation to the object is taken into account, as well as the marker's scale.
thus you can have several objects in a scene, linked to individual markers, and re assemble them with the printout paper-markers.

you could for example create two versions of a building, link these to individual markers and glue the printout markers to each side of a piece of cardboard. now you can use the plugin to look at the model and switch between the two options simply by flipping the printout marker...

by the way: any idea, when the student license is going to be available?

[Edit] I just played around with some models and transparency seemed to work for me - not with too good a quality, but it did work

Graziano Terenzi · 6 Jan 2009, 11:41

Jakob,
thank you very much for your feedback and suggestions, which come in the spirit of this competent and passionate community.

As anticipated, we will release ARplugin V1.1 very soon. It will include a basic scaling option.
We will also make the use of several markers available soon with a future upgrade of the ARplugin. With regards to Dynamic Components, we are studying how to employ this fantastic functionality within our framework. Your thoughts on this topic seem very interesting.
With regards to student license, we had a little delay. Anyway we plan to release the student license in one or two weeks.

Thank you again
Regards

Graziano

plot-paris · 6 Jan 2009, 12:21

inglobe, that is great news! I am eagerly awaiting the student license. really want to try out this marvelous software in more detail. your goals for future releases sound exciting and will enhance the functionality of the plugin a great deal. good luck with the coding

Graziano Terenzi · 8 Jan 2009, 10:42

I will announce a new release of ARplugin soon. It will include a scaling option, a newer and much more flexible license management system, and finally a stundent and an educational license.

In the meanwhile, I must confess that an upload on our website of a version of ARplugin endowed with the first two aforementioned features has been made today.
If you want, you can download it
http://www.inglobetechnologies.com/en/products/arplugin_su/info.php .

Graziano

brk · 10 Jan 2009, 09:18

Any updates on the mac version?

MALAISE · 10 Jan 2009, 10:06

Hi Graziano

Back after a while (service-travel..), I've downloaded the "modified version" but encountering some trouble with licensing. After proper uninstall of the previous version ( the one without scale option ), I put the newest one. The licencing procedure never runs correctly, no chance to reach the one-line licensing module and so I can't activate the full program... Back to the previous version, then all works perfectly even the licensing process.

May be, I do something wrong, or some files are missing..Please, let's see the Userguide pdf files they contain broken or very old URL, and according to me, the licensing explanation procedure is quite less clear than before.

Regards

MALAISE

Graziano Terenzi · 10 Jan 2009, 13:16

@malaise said:

Back after a while (service-travel..), I've downloaded the "modified version" but encountering some trouble with licensing. After proper uninstall of the previous version ( the one without scale option ), I put the newest one. The licencing procedure never runs correctly, no chance to reach the one-line licensing module and so I can't activate the full program... Back to the previous version, then all works perfectly even the licensing process.

May be, I do something wrong, or some files are missing..Please, let's see the Userguide pdf files they contain broken or very old URL, and according to me, the licensing explanation procedure is quite less clear than before.

Regards

MALAISE

Dear Malaise,

sorry for the problems. Before explaining the new licensing procedure, here is the rationale behind the change: the previous licensing model forced users to bind their license to a single machine quite tightly and had no simple license transfer procedure. On the other hand, with the new procedure users can 'transfer' their licenses among their machines easily.

Briefly, the new procedure is as follow:

users freely register on the website
users log in in a reserved area where they can:
2.1 buy one or more licenses
2.2 activate a license (if already bought some licenses)
2.3 release a license (if already activated)

The activate/release process is required to let users "transfer" a license. The main advantage of this approach is that it all happens in realtime, so you do not have to wait for any email.

So, talking about your case, it looks like you have to do the registration on the website (we could do it on behalf of you, but you should do it by yourself in order to choose a personal password). Of course you do not need to follow step 2.1, but when you will be registered we'll make a license available for you. Once we make the license available, you can login to get the license ID for new request ID your plugin will generate.

I have to remark however that old links do not work anymore since they have been substituted by the completely new mechanism.

Thank you again for your precious feedback.

If you keep encountering any problem, don't hesitate to contact us. But as usual we welcome open discussion on this forum.

With reference to the MAC version of ARplugin

@brk said:

Any updates on the mac version?

we are working on it. We will keep you informed.

Regards

Graziano

MALAISE · 10 Jan 2009, 19:21

Hi Graziano and Alessandro

I got your message about the new procedure. Clearly a lot of advantages with such a procedure. I followed instructions given in the private message, but i've done something wrong. Because I could't achieve the new installation, I stored the ID given in a short file. Then I uninstall this new release
(10 Jan 09) and back to the previous one ( 26 dec 08) which works well in licenced mode.

Then, in order to activate the new licence you send me, I copy this stored ID when asked . Of course by reinstalling the new release, an other ID has been generated which doesn't fit with the new licence. So now I'm totaly blocked and this licence is obsolete, no chance to use it. Once more time, I'm back to Arplugin ( 26 Dec 08).

Any advice would be welcome

Regards and sorry for confusion

MALAISE

Graziano Terenzi · 11 Jan 2009, 10:44

@malaise said:

Hi Graziano and Alessandro

I got your message about the new procedure. Clearly a lot of advantages with such a procedure. I followed instructions given in the private message, but i've done something wrong. Because I could't achieve the new installation, I stored the ID given in a short file. Then I uninstall this new release
(10 Jan 09) and back to the previous one ( 26 dec 08) which works well in licenced mode.

Then, in order to activate the new licence you send me, I copy this stored ID when asked . Of course by reinstalling the new release, an other ID has been generated which doesn't fit with the new licence. So now I'm totaly blocked and this licence is obsolete, no chance to use it. Once more time, I'm back to Arplugin ( 26 Dec 08).

Any advice would be welcome

Regards and sorry for confusion

MALAISE

Dear MALAISE,
we are sorry for your problems, we had a subtle issue with licensing on XP that we just fixed, so, please, follow these steps:

remove any installation of the plugin from your system
download it again (last version 11th Jan)
copy the NEW request ID that will be generated by the license manager
use the request ID obtained from step 3 with the online procedure to obtain the new license ID

This should solve the problem. We already have made your license available again in our database. Please feel free to contact us for any question.

Graziano

Graziano Terenzi · 12 Jan 2009, 12:34

Hi all,

I'm happy to announce that both the Student Licenseand the Educational License have been released.
http://www.inglobetechnologies.com/en/products/arplugin_su/info.php

Also a new real-time 3D optimization method is being implemented that will overcome problems with not-optimal 3D models.

Regards

Graziano