Last week at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany the visitors were pleased to see that the organizers prepared some interesting surprises for them. The book fair was mainly destined for children and the surprises consisted of 3D UFOs which popped-up from the books that they were reading.
This technology is called Augmented Reality and the company who first introduced them it’s called Metaio. However, the interactive book presented at the Frankfurt Fair was developed by ArsEdition, it combines 3D images with the real-world and it’s called “Aliens & UFOs.”
AR technology is a good way to attract more kids to read as nowadays children don’t care about reading anymore because they think that a computer and the Internet is far more interesting than books and they see it as their only source of knowledge. However, these books also need a PC based on Windows OS, an Internet connection, and a webcam.
The users will have to download a software which will recognize the book and then 3D images will be created in a video on the screen. It’s very exciting to hear that “the overlay is exact and synchronized” which means that the 3D images will be synched with the movements of the book.
According to Metaio, the AR technology will also be used in advertising, and in design as companies will want to present their projects using the AR 3D Unifeye Platform which is in development for more than 5 years. However, this technique has many drawbacks and the most significant could be the fact that the webcam doesn’t perform well as a tracking system as the video renderings are limited.
There are also other downsides of the AR technology as kids with behavioral and academic problems didn’t respond well to these systems as the AR interferes with the real world. Even if the technology is not perfect, many books will be released and most of them will be encyclopedias, travel guides, and cookbooks.
The Aliens & UFOs 3D book is not available yet and we don’t know when it will enter on the market, but if you’re interested in such books then you could wait for the Atlantica 3D Interactive book to show up in about two weeks. Check out the video below and tell us if you’re impressed by this technology!
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