New ARmedia Augmented Reality Plugin Available

Graziano Terenzi · 15 Dec 2010, 14:57

My dear Sketchup friends,

I'm happy to announce that the new version of the Augmented Reality Plugin for SketchUp is now available.
Please, check the video hereunder to get an idea of its capabilities.

[flash=600,362:1gthjltk]http://www.youtube.com/v/lWCJ3h72SmM?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash:1gthjltk]

Among the new supported features the most important are:

a marker creation utility that allows the creation of custom augmented reality markers,
the support of multiple markers,
the possibility to export independent augmented reality files that can be viewed with the Free ARmedia Player on any computer
an antialiasing filter that enhances the visual appearance of the 3D models.
the possibility to create "Occluder Objects", virtual invisible objects that play the role of physical occluders with respect to other visible virtual objects
the "Light Debug" option, that allows users to adjust tracking robustness as a function of real lighting conditions.

With regards to available licenses, we have also released a FREE "Personal Learning Edition". This is a free but partially limited version of the software that can be downloaded by anyone. So please, register, download your version and help spread the word!

More information here:

Maintenance

(www.inglobetechnologies.com)

Thanks

Graziano

d12dozr · 15 Dec 2010, 18:43

Very cool stuff, Graziano! I had a lot of fun with the first version...this upgrade looks great!

P.S. The video doesn't show for me, is it the same one from the link you provided? I can see the one from the link. (it might be a Youtube geographical setting that needs to be changed)

Graziano Terenzi · 15 Dec 2010, 19:03

Thank you very much d12dozr! I'm sure the new version will be much more funny and useful than the former.
Regarding the video, actually I'm experiencing the same problem. I don't know why it is showing that way. Unless Gaieus or someone else will help fixing this before, I'll try to fix it tomorrow.
Thanks again
Graziano

Gaieus · 16 Dec 2010, 03:16

Hi Graziano,

This is crazy stuff. I still do not believe such things exist!

(I have fixed the video link...)

Chris Fullmer · 16 Dec 2010, 05:23

Looks awesome! I can't wait to try it out. I've got some fun ideas to try it out on.

I really like the occluding objects. That is really great!

Chris

Graziano Terenzi · 16 Dec 2010, 14:59

Thanks you Gaieus both for you comment and help!
Thank you Chris for your comment! Actually occluders can turn to be helpful in many situations. I'm curious to see what you will show us !

thomthom · 16 Dec 2010, 15:06

Occluding objects is great addition!

Graziano Terenzi · 3 Jan 2011, 10:32

Thanks tomtom, and Happy New Year!

We have just uploaded an ARplugin "Quick Start Guide" that I think will be useful to many users.

You can find it on the ARplugin page here:
http://www.inglobetechnologies.com/sketchup_plugins.php

jonny round boy · 4 Mar 2011, 13:15

I downloaded this yesterday, and was up until 7am this morning playing with it! It's awesome!

My laptop is old & not very powerful so the results were a bit jerky, but I'm blown away by the whole concept!

I do have one comment/issue though:

I'm using the PLE version of ARmedia, and SketchUp7 for Windows. The included target is 80mm square, but when I load a model & import the target into SketchUp the virtual target is 2032mm, ie 80 inches (unit preferences in SketchUp are set to mm). This means that any model I want to view at actual size, I have to scale up by a factor of 25.4 (25.4mm = 1 inch).

I don't know if this is an issue with just me, or if it's the same for everyone. Is there a way for the virtual target to be reduced in size? I tried scaling it in SketchUp but it just defaulted to the bigger size.

d12dozr · 4 Mar 2011, 18:37

When you print the marker from the included PDF, set the page scaling to "Multiple pages per sheet". You can't set the exact scale that way, but its an easy way to make a smaller marker.

jonny round boy · 6 Mar 2011, 12:27

@d12dozr said:

When you print the marker from the included PDF, set the page scaling to "Multiple pages per sheet". You can't set the exact scale that way, but its an easy way to make a smaller marker.

Thanks, but I want to make the virtual target smaller, not the real target. And, I'd like it to be accurate, i.e. 1:1 scale.

d12dozr · 6 Mar 2011, 19:17

There is a setting (Plugins -> ARPlugin -> Setup... -> Setup...) to change the size of the virtual marker, but its greyed out for me (I'm using the PLE Edition)...perhaps this is a Professional feature only?

Have you tried setting your model units to inches? Just a guess...

madone · 7 Mar 2011, 09:14

@jonny round boy said:

[cut]

I'm using the PLE version of ARmedia, and SketchUp7 for Windows. The included target is 80mm square, but when I load a model & import the target into SketchUp the virtual target is 2032mm, ie 80 inches (unit preferences in SketchUp are set to mm). This means that any model I want to view at actual size, I have to scale up by a factor of 25.4 (25.4mm = 1 inch).

I don't know if this is an issue with just me, or if it's the same for everyone. Is there a way for the virtual target to be reduced in size? I tried scaling it in SketchUp but it just defaulted to the bigger size.

If you check the 'Fit Scene' box in the AR-media Configuration Utility, during the AR visualization all your scene will be automatically scaled to be contained within the virtual marker's boundaries.
To access the Configuration utility, you can click on the second button from the bottom of the toolbar or click the 'Configure...' button in the menu/main window.

Hope this can help you resolve this issue.