Interlude – Animated Colouring Books as An AR Jumping Off Point

Demonstrations such as the Augmented Reality Browser Demo show how browser based technologies can implement simple augmented reality demonstrations. By building on a browser’s ability to access connected camera feeds, we can reuse third party libraries to detect and track registration images contained within the video feed and 3D plotting libraries to render and overlay 3D objects on the tracked image in real time.

But what if we could also capture information from a modified registration image and use that as part of the rendered 3D model?

A research paper by Disney research – Live Texturing of Augmented Reality Characters from Colored Drawings [PDF] – presented at the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2015) describes “an augmented reality coloring book App in which children color characters in a printed coloring book and inspect their work using a mobile device”, since released as the Disney Color and Play app.

But Disney is not the only company exploring augmented reality colouring books…

Another app in a similar vein is produced by QuiverVision (coloring packs) and is available for iOS and Android devices.

And as you might expect, crayon companies are also keen on finding new ways to sell more crayons and have also been looking at augmented reality colouring books, as in the case of Crayola and their ColorALive app.

DO: grab a coffee and some coloured pen or pencils, install an augmented reality colouring book app, print off an AR colouring pack, then colour in your own 3D model. Magic!:-)

Now compare and contrast augmented reality applications in which a registration image, once captured, can be used to trigger a video effect or free running augmented reality animation with augmented reality applications in which a registration image of environmental feature must be detected and tracked continually in terms of the technology required to implement them, the extent to which they transform a visual scene and the uses to which each approach might be put. Try to think of one or two examples where one technique might be appropriate but the other would not when trying to achieve some sort of effect or meet some particular purpose.