So I thought it was about time I jumped on the augmented reality bandwagon. Rather than the obligitory 3D model I decided to make something a little different. I’ve used 3D lighting techniques and physics here to create this beam of light surrounded by strange celestial light particles.
If you would like to interact with it, first download and print out the marker here then go here for a live demo.
Big thanks to a few people. First and foremost Saqoosha, the clever chap who created the FLARToolkit library, a port of the C++ library ARToolkit. Mikko Haapoja for providing a fantastic introduction to using FLARToolkit. Eric Socolofsky for building the framework FLARManager which makes working with FLARToolkit a sinch.
Incidentaly while making this, John Lindquist started an augmented reality competition on the Papervision forum. I’ve decided to enter it (hence the Papervision Logo on my marker – rules of the comp, not sucking up) so please feel free to vote for me on the forum. 
For those of you who are interested, you can download the source code here. It’s an FDT project but it shouldn’t be too difficult to convert it over to your favourite development environment.
GJ dude. This for that FlarToolkit contest? Wish I woulda had some time to do something.
Thanks Mikko. And thanks again for your great tutorials and source code.
Very Impressive!
It’s so cool!!!:)
iam sorry, I dont get your source to work, not even in FDT!Proberly Iam too stupid
but maybe you can upload it as an flashdevelope project or just for the normal flash environment…although its very nice!
Sorry but I’ve never used Flash Develop. With regards to Setting it up in Flash, I think you just need to remove the embed tag in App.as and use this as your document class. You also might have to download the various libraries I’ve used as Im not sure I’ve included them. They are FlarToolkit + Papervision (obviously), FLARManager and TweenMax.
Hello, I’ve downloaded your source code.
I’ve also installed FDT 3 on my pc.
When I open .project file, I can only see project name, build name, natures and link resources. So how actually can I compile your file and test on my pc?
P/S: I’ve never work on FDT before.
Hi Maudi. Thanks for your interest in my work. Although FDT is the best Actionscript development environment available, it can be quite a process for new users to setup properly. I would suggest looking through the documentation:
http://fdt.powerflasher.com/blog/wp-content/fdtuserguide.pdf
I’m using ANT and the Flex 4 SDK to compile the project.
Alternatively, if you’re using Flex, it shouldn’t be too dificult to set it up as an actionscript project (I don’t use Flex so can’t help you here).
i like magic light from hand glow!
you are wizard!
Hi James, this is very cool I download your source but really couldn’t understand anything I am using Saqoosha’s start kit so working with your source is a bit different any chance of getting some help. I am trying to get the trails to load with my base node. I think once I get that down then I should be good to go.
Thanks
Almog
Hi Almog. I’m using FLARManager – see link above. Are you using FDT? If so have you used it before? If so I might be able to help you. If not, you will need to get FDT set up using ANT and Flex 4 (or 3.3) SDK. If you are a Flex or FlashDevelop user you should be able to port the code across but I will not be able to help as I do not use these platforms.
Hello James..
1.)How can I setup ANT in FDT?
2.)And also Flex 4 SDK, I already follow the pdf that u recommended, but I can only find some SDK 3 in my options (sdk 3 pure, sdk 3 with AIR, etc.), but none of it was SDK 4. So can I import SDK 4 into the core libraries?
Just fished this out of my delicious – http://www.dopelogik.com/documents/actionscript_ant/ might be a bit outdated now.
You can find information on setting up FDT for FP10 here – http://fdt.powerflasher.com/blog/?p=219 along with a link to download the latest releases of Flex SDK 4.
Hello James,
Heard that u won the AR competition. Impressive!
Congratulations.
Anyway, I’m still cant get your files working.. haha..
I think there is something wrong with my setup and I havent figure it out yet..
Again, congratulations.. = )
Hi,
Thanks for providing the source code to you project!
I’m having a little trouble getting it running in FDT. I followed all the instructions here http://fdt.powerflasher.com/blog/?p=219 to setup FDT with flex 4 sdk & flash player 10.
I get an error when I load your project in FDT… it says
Core library is undefined: AS3_FP10_beta
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
It sounds like you havn’t completed step 3 properly. Have you tried setting up a simple FP10 project in FDT? Just write one main class that contains a vector – var vect:Vector.; If this doesn’t work, try making a simple AS3 project to compile a swf.
hello James,
Impressive work you are showing!
I’ve also been experimenting with flarmanager since a few weeks, but there are a few things that won’t work:
In the example simplecubes.as, i want the cubes to display movieclips (movieassetmaterial), any way you can help me on the code?
And I want to display a collada file, when a marker gets recognized, can you help me please?
Thanks in advance,
Dennis
hi james/and all others,
can you please tell me how to compile this in flex?
i can’t manage to do it.
thank you very much
Hi holopaul. Thanks for your interest. I don’t use Flex so I can’t help you. Best of luck though and if you get it working, please send me the project as I’ve had several people asking for a Flex version.
Beautiful work James! Stay creative my friend!
hi again james,
man, i have tried to compile it under fdt but i’m getting this error:
“[java] command line: Error: unable to open ’source/libs’”
what “libs” folder are we talking about?
thanks a million.
paul
oops my mistake. That folder didn’t seem to make it into the zip file. It contains the assets which are wrapped up in a swc. Just uploaded a new version. Try it again.
Also if you hadn’t already noticed, you will need to download several 3rd party libraries. These are Papervision 2.0 + FLARToolkit (obviously), TweenMax and FLARManager.
This looks wicked. Flash is amazing
Whatever happened to using.. oh I dunno… Flash Professional CS4 to compile flash projects?! Is it possible for me to throw your source into Adobe Flash CS4 and compile it??
Sorry D.Riggins but I’m araid that’s not possible (to my knowledge). It’s because you need to embed a few files at runtime. You’re just going to have to learn Flex or FDT.
hola! just wanted to drop a note and let you know that my visitors and i are super stoked about your work!
AR is a field with many possibilities… watching you explore them is fascinating!
keep doing big things!
http://www.drseussjuice.com
Thanks Mr. And thanks for blogging me.
Hi,james
I download your sourcecode and compile in flexbuilder 3,
but i can not find the class MarkerBack which is refered in Marker.as, can you tell me how to solve it?
Hi Cpper. MarkerBack is a Sprite embedded in source/libs/ar_particle_beam_assets.swc. You’ll have to add that file to your classpath.
Hi jamesalliban!
I am Daniel and i’m doing a few tutorials in spanish about Augmented Reality, however the tutorials are only with static elements, so, I have a question: can you show me the light? XD Can you show me the magic behind the video animations in FALRToolKit? I don’t know if, for example, you built the video in After Effects and after that you import data in FLEX or something like that. I really will apreciate your answer.
Thank you and congratulations for your amazing video.
Hi Daniel
Thanks very much. Have you looked through the source code? It’s all in there. I didn’t do any post production in After Effects. The beams coming from the marker are images, the particles are vector graphics and the particle trails were built using code.
Email me at me@jamesalliban.co.uk if you have any other questions.
Cheers
Jim