Apollo Beyond Overview

[brolyss4]

I don´t know why so many comments, I see this not as a final product, but as a prior invetsigation to some new applications in the future. An examle for this, the wheel, on its own its not so great, but it has billions of usefull applications combined with other systems. Stupid people that doesn not seem anything beyond its nose.

[DigitalFrontiers]

Hi brolyss4,

Yes, it was more of just an investigation into these technologies and how they work. It did give us ideas, but alas no time to implement any of them!! :-)

[skitzthegemini]

I think the reason that viewers are giving negative feedback is that the application is so impractical that you REEEAAALLY have to pay attention to even see a semblance of a point. The average gadget/tech enthusiast probably won't care about an "art exploration puzzle". Especially sense THAT wasn't even explained well.

Plus you linked it to the Surface demonstration so you know the first thing people are going to do is compare the two. You handicapped yourself from the start.

[DigitalFrontiers]

Verily, I think you've hit upon the truth. I just find it bizarre since the underlying technology is nearly the same. I could have just as easily programmed it to identify a phone placed on the table (instead of a cube) and present information about the phone. So I don't see much difference. Of course, my version didn't have IR multi-touch capability. :-(

[MichaelJPierce]

Well the technology behind the surface recognizing a cell phone has nothing to do with a camera capturing an image of the phone, but rather with the exsisting technology of wireless communication. (the phones store info on themselves). Though what should be considered heavily is the use of augmented reality to be used with the surface. If you are a programmer working with AR I would jump at the chance to work on programs for the surface, it can kick start AR to the mainstream.

[DigitalFrontiers]

Actually, the link in my sidebar showed a "behind-the-scenes" interview of how Surface used barcode-like stickers placed on the backs of the credit cards, phones, and drink glasses to recognize them--much easier than triangulating cell signals down to centimeters and differentiating objects. The video has since been removed but you can probably still find this information somewhere.

I had plans to more heavily integrate the two parts of the project as you suggest but ran out of time.

[DigitalFrontiers]

I found this link for you. They (quickly) gloss over Surface's recognition technology in the first paragraph under "The Hardware" here:

arstechnica[dot]com[slash]arti­cles[slash]culture[slash]surfa­ce.ars

Surface isn't the technological advance they portray it to be.

[migman29]

wtf noob 1 star

[DigitalFrontiers]

Rate it however you like but watch your tone, cat flap, unless you can put up that you've built one better.

[pcpimpster]

wtf is right, seriously no offense to the authors but someone linked to this as being directly related to the M$ table top computing... if this is competition, then M$ bought this market already. you shouldnt bother posting when you have something atleast similiar to m$ offering which this isnt.

[pcpimpster]

i meant to say this DOESNT have something similiar to the m$ offering.

[DigitalFrontiers]

Incidentally, we built our table before Microsoft even revealed the existence of "Surface".

[pcpimpster]

Honestly its a cool concept with what you had to build it. Where i linked from (i think digg) they were comparing it to Surface which is why i posted that comment.

Pound for pound you guys did a great job.

[DigitalFrontiers]

The table isn't meant to be competition to MS. You really think 2 people with a $2000 budget can compete with hundreds of engineers and millions of dollars in funding!? My point above is that for a 10th of the cost you can make your own table and program it to do anything you want--a game, an interface for networked home devices or an ROV, or even yet another unoriginal mp3 player--without having to wait 3 years just to get the opportunity to pay the price of a small car just to have one.

[harshisgangsta]

ok?

[DigitalFrontiers]

A lot of the stuff you're seeing in the Microsoft Surface videos is not quite as slick as it seems--MS Surface uses simple fiducial marker pattern tracking & recognition to identify the objects placed upon it--the same as our "garage" surface computer!

The link below shows the marker patterns placed on the bottoms of the drink glasses, credit cards, and phones used in Microsoft's videos to make it appear that the table just knows what they are...

youtube*com/watch?v=FtrztnqCrm­4

[drtymarshmallows]

wtf...ok??!??

[DigitalFrontiers]

The project was an interactive room/puzzle game. The table computer interface revealed stories along with an augmented reality viewer that talked to the table computer. A diagram of the tools used to build the table is presented in the video. Since this video was more of a project overview, the focus wasn't on the details of the table construction but on the project as a whole. However, I thought the diagram might be useful for those interested in building their own.