NEWS RELEASE
September16 2002
Game on for augmented reality
researchers
Fancy running
around outside with a wearable computer shooting digitised monsters as
they lunge towards you from behind the student bar of a real world
university campus? Well, now is your big chance. Using a gun with
simulated recoil, you will be able to destroy the bloodthirsty aliens in a
new game produced by students from UniSA’s School of Computer and
Information Science.
The ARQuake
system, developed by Wayne Piekarski and Ben Close under the supervision
of Associate Professor Bruce Thomas, is one of the first systems in the
world that allows users to play augmented reality games outdoors.
Augmented reality allows viewers to move around in the physical world
while at the same time experiencing computer-generated graphical monsters
and other objects.
ARQuake is an
extension of an existing virtual reality desktop-based game, Quake, where
a player moves around a virtual or artificial world using a monitor,
keyboard and mouse to shoot at monsters, collect objects and complete
objectives.
“In ARQuake we
take the monsters out of the Quake game and allow them and the players to
roam around a real environment. This augmented reality process involves
overlaying and aligning computer-generated graphics and images onto a
real-world view and allows users to have ‘X-ray vision’, visualising
objects that may not be visible in the real world,” Piekarski said.
In developing
ARQuake, students from the Wearable Computer Lab, part of UniSA’s
Advanced Computing Research Centre, and the School of Computer and
Information Science, started by mapping the University’s Mawson Lakes
campus, building a Quake environment out of it and adding the digitised
monsters, according to Professor Thomas.
“The software
has been set up so that when the players move in the real world, the quake
world moves as well, keeping the two aligned,” Professor Thomas said.
“Players in
the game wear a transparent head-mounted display with an internal mirror
that combines the computer-generated images with the player’s real-world
view. This display is combined with a wearable computer equipped with a
specially modified version of Quake, a digital compass, GPS satellite
position tracking, and a custom made plastic gun. When integrated, these
components allow players to control the computer while moving around in
the real world.”
Equipped with
the ARQuake system, players can sneak up on digitised monsters hiding
behind real buildings by peering around corners and shooting them with
real-life (plastic toy) weapons, before these monsters take a piece out of
the attacking player.
While the
technology is ‘neat’ to play games with, real research is being done
with the equipment at UniSA’s Wearable Computer Lab. Its main use is to
perform research into the use of augmented reality computers outdoors
using a software system known as Tinmith-evo5, created by Piekarski, aged
24 years. This system can model large 3D structures outdoors in a
groundbreaking natural and intuitive way, and has a large number of
possible applications in the future such as surveying, building
construction, disaster relief and defence. The work has been presented at
a number or international conferences and is some of the first in the
world in this area.
“In
recognition of his outstanding research, Wayne was named one of three
finalists for the inaugural Australian Computer Society Eureka Prize for
ICT Innovation. The prize is awarded to an individual, team or
organisation for outstanding innovation in the research, design,
development or implementation of projects related to the Information and
Communications Technology,” Professor Thomas said.
“To reach the
finalist stage for this prestigious award is an outstanding achievement
and confirms what we already knew – that Wayne Piekarski’s AR research
is truly world-class.”
For more
information on the Wearable Computer Lab’s projects, please visit http://wearables.unisa.edu.au
Media
contact: Geraldine Hinter (08) 8302 0963 or 0417 861832
