South Korean researchers have developed "WonderScope," an augmented reality appcessory that projects the inside of an object from its surface.
It is a cylindrical module with a diameter of 5cm and a height of 4.5cm, and can be easily attached to a smartphone or can be put inside exhibits.
Appcessory is a new word that combined smartphone apps and accessories, and it collectively refers to smartphone peripherals that operate as applications. By attaching or embedding radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on exhibits, visitors can easily experience AR effects with their smartphones. RFID uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects.
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) said that WonderScope can be applied in various forms in conjunction with smartwatches, smartphones, and tablets with Android operating systems. "WonderScope's various applications are possible not only in education but also in commercial exhibitions," Lee Woo-hoon, a senior KAIST researcher, said in a statement on September 13.
For the wide use of WonderScope, KAIST said that two complementary characteristics of optical displacement sensor output and acceleration sensor output were used together to stably locate various materials such as paper, stone, wood, plastic, acrylic, and glass, as well as surfaces with irregularities and physical patterns.
The location can be determined even at a range of about 4 cm from the surface, enabling simple three-dimensional interaction near the surface. The research team has developed various case project templates and support tools to easily produce smartphone apps using general-purpose virtual reality and Unity, a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies.
SOURCE : AJU DAILY by Lim Chang-Won
