Living in an Augmented Reality

It looks like someone may actually make an AR game for the DSi;  the GhostWire game that someone created on the Nokia phone is now going to be ported to the DSi.

Some folks would say this is not “really” AR, since the graphics (ghosts) are not tightly, accurately, spatially registered with the world.  Normally, I would agree;  as is obviously from my work and other posts, I think it is important to distinguish between different kinds of systems that relate the physical and virtual worlds, because different approaches have different affordances and capabilities.  I tend to call “AR” things that tightly register graphics with the physical world, because it creates experiences that afford certain things (e.g., allows people to leverage their spatial and perceptual abilities to remember where virtual things are, refer to them, perform actions in relation to them, collaborate, and so on). Conversely, I usually refer to experiences like this, that crudely position graphics in a space, as mixed reality (MR).

However, the ghost theme is the one theme that is amenable to “faking AR” on low end devices.  Over the years, we’ve done a lot of ghost-themed experiences, first on Auburn Avenue (an historic area in Atlanta) and later at the nearby Oakland Cemetery (where we had students do class projects for years in our Augmented and Mixed Reality Experience Design class).   One of the reasons ghosts “work” is that we all “know” how ghosts “behave”, and one of these behaviors is that they don’t stick to the real world, they float and shift and even appear to go through objects or walls.  Which is exactly what happens when the graphics aren’t registered.

So, the upside is, I’ll look forward to this game coming out, and like to see how it works.  There are lots of questions that remain to be answered before one can say if this will be good or not, but the idea is interesting and promising.

Over on Wired there is an article about a new Nintendo DS possibly having a camera and other support for creating AR games. Ori also comments on this.

I am also really excited by this; anything that pushes handheld AR will be a good thing for those of us currently engaged in it (and it’ll give my students more job opportunities!).  There is the practical issue of creating “good handheld AR games” that are practical for mass marketing and consumption. The DS/PSP/Gizmondo aren’t powerful enough to do “real computer vision” (like the PS3 could do), and so some sort of physical props (e.g., cards with markers on them) will be needed. As soon as your start requiring props, that makes the games less portable … a conundrum to be sure.

Hopefully, some of the students in the “handheld AR game design” class I’m doing at GT right now (in collaboration with a class at SCAD Atlanta) will come up with some compelling examples and help drive interest!