Definition:
(noun) – French for “object of art.” An objet d’art is something small and decorative – such as a miniature painting, or porcelain statuette, or the hand-print your 4-year-old child made in wet plaster and decorated with glitter when it had dried – that has artistic value. At least, to you, its owner. (In other words: somebody is going to have to dust that little dust-catching objet, and that person will likely be you. Make sure it’s something you value!)
At the moment there’s broadly two types of AR (Augmented Reality) out there.
- Search
- Objet d’AR
Search is simply the overlay of data on an AR display. This data commonly comes from retailer indexes, wikipedia, public transport timetables and other sources of data which can be geo-located. These mechanisms commonly use GPS units in smart phones to provide key data. This is an incredibly quickly growing area with multiple competing applications for the same services – whether that’s the London Tube or access to geo-located search data provided by Google or Microsoft Bing.
Objet d’AR is my pet name for most of the fiducial marker-based projects which are appearing all over the web and also in print. We’ve seen them all over Youtube, on the front of Empire magazine, and even in marketing promotions for toys and movies. The Objet d’AR tends to have very little utliity but presents a lot of opportunities for amusement.
So, have you seen any examples of Augmented Reality that extends beyond Search and Objet d’AR?