Archive for December 22nd, 2006

VR on an RC Airplane

Friday, December 22nd, 2006
VRflyer

In keeping with this week’s theme of flying toys and vision we thought we should post up VRflyer’s videos that have been all over the web this year. VRflyer took the whole remote presence game to a new level when he used a goggle set that tracked his head movements and moved the plane camera in synch. This little evolution in interactivity actually has an immense impact on user experience. The ability to move your head around as if you were 4 inches tall sitting in the plane cockpit makes all the difference in the world. Watch the video below, it tells the whole story.

Link to VRflyer’s youtube page

Link to thread discussion with VRflyer

DAVID – low cost solution for 3d laser scanning using everyday tools

Friday, December 22nd, 2006
DAVID 3D scanning

Yes, it looks like something from Star Wars, but it is in fact real and even better, actually affordable! In fact, using common, everyday toys that most us “geeks” have laying around our houses, we can start playing with this ourselves, because the software is free. All you need is a PC, webcam, a background corner, and a laser to project the line onto the object you want to scan.

Think of the possibilities this type of application can have in robotics? One rather obvious idea comes right away; a wheelbot, crawler, or humanoid has this software built onto it, walks into a room, scans it, and has an entire 3D map of it’s environment! Yes, I know, this idea already exists, but not on a modular level whereas it can be implemented in any robot.

“DAVID (Definetly Affordable Vision Device) has been developed by the computer scientists Dr. Simon Winkelbach and Sven Molkenstruck from the Institute for Robotics and Process Control, Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany. The concept has been published as a paper at the German Association for Pattern Recognition (DAGM, Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Mustererkennung)and can be downloaded here.”

The technology does have some limitations right now, such as the object being scanned has to be against a corner in a room or in front of two planes with an exact angle of 90° right now, but it looks like they are constantly improving the capabilities of this software. What’s really cool, is that it is written using the .NET Framework 1.1! Take a look as some of the screenshots:

DAVID Depth 1
DAVID final

via Hack-A-Day DAVID Homepage