Virtual Character walking around table top in Augmented Reality

I was a founding employee of Dekko, Inc. from December 1, 2010 through to January 11, 2013 and worked in the role of Senior Computer Vision Engineer, as the team grew from four people to ten.

I was responsible for the initial software architecture and the implementation of our computer vision based augmented reality system. Starting from academic research results, I implemented a real time SLAM optical tracker, and the foundations of our monocular 3D reconstruction system on a consumer mobile device. I also invented a monocular stereo initialization technique, developed the idea, sketched out the user experience and built a prototype to perform user tests. Eventually I built out the full initialization technology that was launched in the Apple App Store in mid 2012.

This video shows our SLAM based 3D reconstruction in action, enabling occlusion and collision of real world objects and a virtual character running in realtime on an iPad2.

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Hoppala is the world’s largest content platform for geo based augmented reality

With more than 4000 10.000 registered developers Hoppala Augmentation is the world’s largest content platform for geo based augmented reality. Hoppala Augmentation is the “Dreamweaver” for AR. It seamlessly publishes your content to all three major AR browsers: Layar, Junaio and Wikitude. Create once and publish everywhere.

Hoppala Augmentation is the perfect entry point even for non-technical people to learn about augmented reality. University classes and workshops all around the world use Hoppala Augmentation to actually create AR content. The graphical web interface makes it very easy to build geo referenced content with just some mouse clicks, there is no software installation required and no coding needed at all. Learn more about this great example of an academic project based on Hoppala Augmentation: the San Diego’s School in the Park, hosted by Patrick O’Shea, Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology at Appalachian State University, USA. Read more…

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Berlin Wall 3D

The Berlin Wall is back – in Augmented Reality! Experience german history at an historical place, right in the middle of germanys capital. Use your handset to follow the wall at the former border line at Brandenburg gate, the Reichstag and Potsdamer Platz and experience the Berlin Wall in it‘s original size. Do you have an idea how it feels to have this huge concrete barrier right next to you? Go and find out. It‘s incredible! Read more…

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Keynote at MobileTechConference 2010

I had the great honor to give one of the three keynotes at this year’s MobileTechConferencebesides Microsoft and Google. The subject of my talk was “Augmented Reality – From Science Fiction to Mass Medium”. It covered the current state of Mobile AR, sketched out the different pieces of technology that will make their way into the industry and pointed out how they will possibly play together very soon. Besides all the fancy tech we talked about the business side of Mobile Augmented Reality and shed some light on what is driving the different players in the industry and their business cases. Read more…

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Speaking at ARE 2011

I had the great honor to contribute to this year’s Augmented Reality Conference ARE 2011 in Santa Clara, California. My presentation was all about making AR technology accessible to non-technical people, it was about content management for geobased AR and cross-browser publishing. It was great to share and discuss some of the learnings from building the Hoppala Augmentation content platform.
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Augmented Reality – Von Science Fiction zum Massenmedium

Dieser Artikel erschien zuerst in der Ausgabe 1/2011 der Zeitschrift Mobile Technology aus dem Software & Support Media Verlag, Frankfurt.

Bisher haben wir Wissen und Informationen an bestimmten Orten untergebracht, z.B. in Bibliotheken, in einem Bücherregal oder in einem Computer. Aber am Ort selbst, standen uns diese Informationen tatsächlich oftmals nicht zur Verfügung. „Augmented Reality“, englisch für „erweiterte Realität“, bezeichnet eine Technologie, die die Sicht auf die reale Welt durch digitale Informationen und Objekte erweitert. Mit Hilfe von Augmented Reality bringen wir Informationen in ihren räumlichen Kontext. Read more…

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Session at O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference

I’m grateful for the invitation to O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara, California. In my session “Geobased AR Content Management In the Cloud” I shared some insights about hurdles and obstacles in the development of mobile geobased augmented reality applications and introduced Hoppala, the cross-browser content platform for mobile AR. Read more…

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Hoppala AR Content Platform opens to all major mobile ar browsers

Hoppala Augmentation, the world’s largest content platform for mobile augmented reality applications, expands beyond Layar exclusivity and adds support for Junaio and Wikitude mobile AR browsers.

Hoppala Augmentation provides an easy-to-use graphical web interface to create augmented reality contents with just a few mouseclicks. It provides a login and a full screen map interface, and images and 3D models can be easily uploaded to a personalized inventory. Created once, Hoppala Augmentation publishes your contents to all major mobile augmented reality browsers. In addition to previous support of the Layar augmented reality browser, Hoppala Augmentation also adds support for Junaio of the German AR company Metaio, as well as Wikitude by Mobilizy from Austria.

Publishing content on mobile AR browsers today still requires creating program code, and without any established standards, content creation not only becomes a technology decision, but even a platform decision as well. Hoppala Augmentation takes away the burdens of technology and platform requirements. Read more…

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Speaking at Creative Networks Birmingham

Creative Networks Birmingham is a monthly gathering of people who currently work in the creative and digital media industries and of students and graduates. I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the january Creative Networks event “Apps World: The next generation – augmented reality, games development and the digital agency.” My presentation was all about mobile augmented reality, starting with an overview of what’s already out there today we walked through some visionary future tech and applications in the mobile augmented space. Our main message: let the creatives jump in! Read more…

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Mentoring at XMediaLab Sweden

I’m very happy I had the great honor to speak at XMediaLab Sweden in Malmö this january. XMediaLab events follow a very unique format. This one was specifically dedicated to location based services, it consisted of a conference day packed with interesting talks plus a two days workshop, the so called lab. During the lab conference speakers become mentors to work one-on-one with selected digital media businesses and project teams. The lab was held at a beautiful traditional countryside location, which certainly added good spirits. Read more…

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Making Mobile Marketing Work – Workshop in Birmingham

The Berlin Wall 3D once again served as a great showcase of what can be done in mobile augmented reality at Making Mobile Marketing Work workshop in Birmingham on december 1st. The workshop was presented by DMA in partnership with Business Link West Midands and the NTI-New Technology Institute, part of Birmingham City University. Making Mobile Marketing Work was a one-day practical workshop demonstrating how to take mobile marketing beyond SMS using a range of channels to create stimulating, effective and engaging marketing campaigns. It was part of the European Creativity Voucher which is a current project that sets to enable companies in different EU countries to collaborate and work together.
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Speaking at ARCH Meetup at IMI University

This time Swiss AR meetup group aimed at assisting professionals in the tourism trade and vendors who are serving the tourist market to get familiar with augmented reality and to explore the use of AR for their local visitors and businesses. Hoppala executed a couple AR tourism projects before. I presented “Berlin Wall 3D” as well as “Rhônes-Alpes Tourism” to name just a few. It was fun to join the intense discussions later the day. Read more…

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