ARToolKit

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ARToolKit is a computer tracking library for creation of strong augmented reality applications that overlay virtual imagery on the real world. To do this, it uses video tracking capabilities that calculate the real camera position and orientation relative to square physical markers in real time. Once the real camera position is known a virtual camera can be positioned at the same point and 3D computer graphics models drawn exactly overlaid on the real marker. So ARToolKit solves two of the key problems in Augmented Reality; viewpoint tracking and virtual object interaction.

ARToolKit was originally developed by Hirokazu Kato of Nara Institute of Science and Technology in 1999^[1] and was released by the University of Washington HIT Lab. Currently it is maintained as an opensource project hosted on SourceForge^[2] with commercial licenses available from ARToolWorks.^[3] ARToolKit is a very widely used AR tracking library with over 160,000 downloads since 2004.^[4]

Features

• Single camera position/orientation tracking.
• Tracking code that uses simple black squares.
• The ability to use any square marker patterns.
• Easy camera calibration code.
• Fast enough for real time AR applications.
• Free and open source.

Operating systems

It is available for SGI IRIX, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux-based systems. Recently it has also been ported to the Symbian, iPhone, Android and Windows Phone operating systems to support mobile AR applications.

Spinoffs and related

• OSGART - a combination of ARToolKit and OpenSceneGraph
• ARTag - alternative to ARToolKit that uses more complex image processing and digital symbol processing for reliability and resistance to light. Only licensed for non-commercial purposes.
• ARToolKitPlus - extended version of ARToolKit, only targeted to developers of AR-oriented software.
• Studierstube Tracker - Successor of ARToolKitPlus, many new features, closed source, not available for download.
• Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRT) - University College London
• FLARToolKit - an ActionScript 3 port of ARToolKit for Flash 9+.
• SLARToolkit - a Silverlight port of NyARToolkit.
• NyARToolkit - an ARToolkit class library released for virtual machines, particularly those that host Java, C# and Android.
• ARDesktop - ARToolKit class library that creates a three-dimensional desktop interface with controls and widgets.
• AndAR - A Pure Java API for the Android platform.
• ATOMIC Authoring Tool - a Cross-platform Authoring Tool software, for Augmented Reality Applications, which is a Front end for the ARToolkit library. Was developed for non-programmers, to create small and simple, Augmented Reality applications, released under the GNU GPL License.
• ATOMIC Web Authoring Tool Is a children project from: ATOMIC Authoring Tool that enables the creation of Augmented Reality applications and export it, to any website. Developed as A front end (Graphic Interface) for the Flartoolkit library. And it's licensed under the GNU GPL License.
• ArUco: A minimal library for Aumented Reality applications based on OpenCv (BSD License)
• Look - Augmented Reality for Android: Develop own augmented reality applications for Android with Two-dimensional graphics, three dimensional and tactile interactions, indoor location, persistent data and access to remote services.

References

External links

• ARToolkit
• Interactive Media Design Lab.
• Project page at SourceForge.net
• Project page at Launchpad
• Web forum
• [2] python binding of ARToolKit
• [3] NyARToolKit(ARToolKit Java Edition)
• [4] ARToolWorks website