DIY Augmented reality with cheap hardware...

Tweaq has this great augmented reality project "You can use their free software and patterns, and view augmented reality using your webcam. It's a lot more astonishing when you actually see it, and you can pan around the object using your webcam." From the site "...inspired by ARToolkit, the popular system designed for Augmented Reality...

"ARTag consists of a library of patterns, which when mounted on a flat surface by themself (or now in arrays) and viewed by a video camera or webcam, can be robustly identified. Pose can be found accurately and with low cost using a camera as the only special hardware. For Augmented Reality this means the viewpoint (pose) can be determined from the markers so a 3D object can be rendered so it looks like it belongs in the scene when you see it with a webcam or look at it with your HMD. A full SDK with camera and OpenGL support is available for you to develop your own AR applications!"

Link.

Die Dulci Fruere