Fellow AR enthusiasts,
osgART Standard Edition version 1.0 is released and available for
immediate downloaded NOW. Please read on for details...
osgART is a new software development toolkit developed by the HITLab
NZ and distributed by ARToolworks, Inc., which simplifies the
development of Augmented Reality or Mixed Reality applications by
combining the well-known ARToolKit tracking library with
OpenSceneGraph. But rather than acting just as a simple nodekit, the
library offers 3 main functionalities: high level integration of
video input (video object, shaders), spatial registration (marker-
based, multiple trackers), and photometric registration (occlusion,
shadow).
With osgART, users gain the benefit of all the features of
OpenSceneGraph (high quality renderer, multiple file type loaders,
community nodekits like osgAL, etc.) directly in their augmented
reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) or mediated reality applications.
As with the standard ARToolKit, the user can thus develop and
prototype interactive applications that can use tangible interaction
(in C++, Python, Lua, Ruby etc.).
osgART is published in two editions; osgART Standard and osgART
Professional. osgART Standard Edition is a basic version of osgART
and is freely licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL license. It
includes an ARToolKit plugin and you access a various examples which
will guide you through from a simple video viewer to a animated,
interactive AR application.
osgART Professional Edition is an advanced version of osgART with
plugins for a variety of different tracking architectures including
ARToolKit Professional and ARToolKit NFT, advanced video input
plugins and support for a much wider variety of video sources,
extended examples including advanced rendering techniques, and much
more. Licenses for osgART Professional Edition are fee-bearing, but
allow access to the advanced features and inclusion of osgART in
propriety products.
The osgART toolkit features:
- Transparent integration of video capture through various video
plugins (camera, files, network streaming), video objects (plane,
layer, etc), video shaders (GLSL effects).
- Spatial Registration: integration of multiple tracker technologies,
both marker-based or natural feature tracking (ARToolKit,
ARToolKitPlus, BazAR etc.), notion of MarkerTransform/
LocalMarkerTransform directly in the Scene-Graph.
- Visual Registration: various modes of visualisation are supported
from photorealistic rendering (AR shadow, occlusion) to NPR.
- Support for multiple development interfaces beyond C++. It
integrates with osgIntrospection and provides additional SWIG
bindings which support
Python, Lua or Ruby.
The osgART Standard Edition version 1.0 community website is the
place to head for the download, documentation and more information.
--- http://www.artoolworks.com/community/osgart ---
A run down of the feature of OSGART can be seen in our gallery.
--- http://www.artoolworks.com/community/osgart/gallery.html ---
A community support forum has been established, please join and
participate.
--- http://www.artoolworks.com/forum ---
Problem reports and enhancement requests are welcomed and should be
filed in our bug tracker to gain maximum attention of the developers.
--- http://zulu.artoolworks.com/bugzilla/ ---
Information regarding commercial licensing of osgART Professional
Edition:
--- http://www.artoolworks.com/products/osgart/ ---
We invite you to try out the code, tell us about your experiences
with it, and begin dreaming of the really cool possibilities for your
AR applications.
Finally, many thanks from the HIT Lab NZ and ARToolworks teams to all
the coders, bug reporters and enthusiasts who contributed to this
release!
Philip Lamb
HIT Lab NZ and ARToolworks, Inc.
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