There are two parts to developing applications that use ARToolKit; writing the application, and training image-processing routines on the real world markers that will be used in the application.

Writing an application with ARToolKit is very easy: a simple outline is used for creating an AR application. We base on it for writing a new application. Similarly, training pattern phase is largely simplified with the use of simple tool.

The following steps must be taken in your application main code:

Initialization	1. Initialize the video capture and read in the marker pattern files and camera parameters.
Main Loop	2. Grab a video input frame.
	3. Detect the markers and recognized patterns in the video input frame.
	4. Calculate the camera transformation relative to the detected patterns.
	5. Draw the virtual objects on the detected patterns.
Shutdown	6. Close the video capture down.

Steps 2 through 5 are repeated continuously until the application quits, while steps 1 and 6 are just performed on initialization and shutdown of the application respectively. In addition to these steps the application may need to respond to mouse, keyboard or other application specific events.

The next page will describe you in details this different steps, and the following how training patterns (and deal with more than one pattern).