I would like to know how the AR app Layar/junaio works. I want to build a similar app but for indoor guide of a particular building. The building is fixed and the plan inside the building doesn't change.
The crux of the app would be to guide visitors of the building to their destinations.
End Result: Possibly throw a map as output or provide wikitude like drive.
Typical Usage:
Visitor visits the building, scans the QR code posted at the entrance and downloads the app from appstore/market
At the lobby, user opens the downloaded app and scans another huge picture (Can be barcode or any unique picture)
The app shows the different areas of the building just like layar or junaio and then user selects a particular area and requires a navigation map as output from the point.
Will be using different unique pictures/barcodes at different point to locate the users location instead of relying on gps as it would not help indoors for navigation.
Any inputs on how to start would be of great help. I'm an experienced mobile app developer and have developed regular utility apps, api mashups etc. But nothing in AR.
AR apps usually use a combination of GPS, Compass, Altitude, Accelerometer, and gyroscope data to figure out the exact location of a device. They then access the camera view and place graphics on top of it.
The problem with your idea is that most AR apps usually come in one of two forms:
- Outside without pinpoint accuracy to position, (the device knows exactly the heading so the direction is perfect but the distance may be a litte off)
- Based off a target symbol (think 3ds card, barcode, etc) to keep a point of reference in the scene
Unfortunately your application would require you to be indoors so it would be extremely hard to figure out the exact position because of the GPS loss. At best you could have a series of "scanable qrcodes" to then display a map and direct the user to the next point. You could determine the exact position of a user by calculating the change in gyroscope data from the beginning to the current time, but that would hard especially dealing with inaccuracies and interruptions.
I think the safest bet for your app would be to have codes at certain points to help at your users. If anyone else has a better answer please correct me XD
Dsbtwins said:
You could determine the exact position of a user by calculating the change in gyroscope data from the beginning to the current time, but that would hard especially dealing with inaccuracies and interruptions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be epic... but not all phones have gyros. Soo...
What about having devices setup to emit a distinct directional non audible noise that the phone will listen for and use that to key the user to what room they are in. All phones have a microphone.
Or key off music in a room if there is any
From something awesome
Dsbtwins said:
At best you could have a series of "scanable qrcodes" to then display a map and direct the user to the next point.
I think the safest bet for your app would be to have codes at certain points to help at your users. If anyone else has a better answer please correct me XD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I have already discounted the use of gps. Series of QR/Scannable Codes
should help me solve the problem. Since I would only be showing a map from the QR/Scannable Code point.
Let me give you an example of how I would like to implement in real life.
User enters walmart, opens the app after scanning the first scannable code, he gets to see the different areas/offers on the camera view (AR)
and then would like to give a map output on how to reach within, when the user selects say "groceries" on the camera view. The app should give a map output on how to reach the groceries area from the scanned location.
I believe lot of people get lost in locating things in a large retail store. Walmart was just an example to explain, there are other stores which have this issue.
Guys, your inputs on the idea itself are welcome.
killersnowman said:
That would be epic... but not all phones have gyros. Soo...
What about having devices setup to emit a distinct directional non audible noise that the phone will listen for and use that to key the user to what room they are in. All phones have a microphone.
From something awesome
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont think it will work in a noisy environment like malls, retail stores etc. But works well in a ambient place like museum. Though ur idea is brilliant, dont know how it will work in reality.
Yes that sounds like it should be possible. An honestly what you could do is have a large "maker" (some sort of distinguishable shape and color or pattern) on a cube in the middle of the store, that way when the user holds up his phone to look at it, the phone will know what he is looking at depending on which face on the cube it is. you can then use that as a reference in the view and map out location icons over the view.
Related
Although I own a mogul and a bluetooth GPS, i don't own a car and still take the bus/train/taxi/ferry to and from work. Does anyone know of a program that can sound a customizable alarm/command based on GPS location?
I was hoping for something like rk-Sleep or rk-Location -- both of these programs can run intricate sets of commands based on location, but this only uses cell towers and not gps.
Code:
rk-LocSwitch: Phone Tower based app/commandline trigger
>> [url]http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=328114[/url]
rk-Sleep: Location based auto Phone Switch
>> [url]http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...76#post1428076[/url]
Maybe I might find a mort script that can help.
That would be so cool!
(Yes, pointless post, but I'd love a program like that.)
isn't that a navigation software exactly what you want? enter your destination and done.
I think this would be a great feature for Google Maps, especially with the My Location thing. I feel like it's a bit out of the scope of their program, but I think I'll recommend it.
you could enter a range of coordinates and execute a file when you are there,
it shouldnt be that difficult to make, is it? you dont need any map software. you could locate the coordinates on google maps and then put them in the program or something liek that
Couldn't you just replace the sound file in the sat nav software thats says "You have arrived" with a bell/ring sound file.
The idea of changing the "you have arrived" or the sound files in general would be a great idea, except it would still make an extremely battery intensive program with the screen on, running a full mapping program and all.
I like the idea of using the coordinates, because really that is all I would need (and most mapping programs can tell me that in advance anyways.
Now, just need to find some source code to mash together!
This would be so helpful.
Anybody who claims there is no point in programming such an application has never fallen asleep in a train/bus because of alcohol and slept through the whole ride missing their stop.
E_Shinobi said:
This would be so helpful.
Anybody who claims there is no point in programming such an application has never fallen asleep in a train/bus because of alcohol and slept through the whole ride missing their stop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.trackr.eu/ has promised a tool like this. When you enter a specific location or when you leave a predefined line you can send a email or sms.
When you send it to yourself and make a rule in Phonealarm for example, voila you have what the topicstarter wanted
you could check out:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=340667
there is a geo fence feature that you could set up, so when you get within "x" distance of where you are going it will send you a text message or email, the notification could wake you up.
Make some money as well while you are traveling, check out www.navizon.com
its a pretty cool free program that gives you credit for every cell tower and wifi ap you see, you earn money for helping the company build up its database. if you sign up you can use my referral link so I get extra points, otherwise just sign up normally if your not into the whole referral thing, it really is a kick as program if you have GPS, its maps are similar to google maps as well.
here is my referral link if you are so inclined:
http://my.navizon.com/Webapps/UserAdmin/register.aspx?referral_code=5D56565E5A56
Finally found a program that does this!
BeelineGPS http://www.visualgps.net/BeeLineGPS/ Has the option to sec "Active" POIs - when you set one up you give it the lat and lon and you can tell it how far away you want it to play the associated sound file. So I set it up with a bus stop and told it to play some Offspring when I am within a mile of my stop, worked like a charm!
They list the feature as being useful for doing an audio tour, I guess something like "you are currently in front of the south entrance, this is where we buried all the dead bodies"
Now, Beeline will keep the device awake but that keeps the screen on and touchscreen active, If you turn off the device it turns off the GPS and Beeline loses the lock. The solution is to have an audio player (I'm using Pocket Tunes) running in the foreground, then you can turn off the device, the GPS stays active and the alarm sounds come through your headphones. If you want silence you could run TrackMe or another program that has the ability to turn off the screen and keep the OS working.
I also created a bunch of crossroad POIs and associated the street names spoken by AT&T's text to wav site http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php so I can know where I am without even opening my eyes.
E_Shinobi said:
This would be so helpful.
Anybody who claims there is no point in programming such an application has never fallen asleep in a train/bus because of alcohol and slept through the whole ride missing their stop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's the problem then......don't drink and you won't fall asleep..hahaha!!!
I've used google, both web and through xda, and haven't really found what I wanted yet, so i'm hoping that maybe someone knows a piece, or pieces of software that I can use.
My friends and I go mountain biking alot, and I'd like to start tracking the trails we use, as sometimes we find trails that are really out of the way.
I've got an HTC Mogul, and I have unlocked the GPS through a custom ROM, now I'm just searching for a GPS software that will work.
What i'd like, is a software that tracks the GPS data and stores it locally, not upload it to a website, so that I can bring it home to my computer and mess with it locally.
I just saw Everytrail.com today, and I'm going to try that out, but the problem with that, and all the other software that I've found, is that it sends the data to a server and doesn't store the data locally.
Anyone know any software, that will just take the data (say ~every 30 seconds) and save it for my own use?
The other problem, but one which I'm sure I can solve on my own, is that all the other gps tracking software out there creates tracks from point A to point B, when what I want is to create a collection of interconnectining tracks, without point A to B, but just plotted tracks, and hopefully display those on the device itself.
What you are saying is that you want waypoints along the trail -- taken like snapshots every 10 minutes or so, correct?
Like a regular cheapo GPS unit, correct?
Hi,
I was playing around with the GPS on my Touch Cruise the other week. I wrote a small C# app to grab the coordinates and convert it to a UK OS grid reference. Building on this to log to a file at intervals would be trivial. I could probably also plot the resulting array of coords to a bitmap and display on screen. It wouldn't be anything special or overlaid on a map or anything but it could get you started. I'm away from home at the mo so don't have access to my laptop to do it but drop me a PM to remind me and I'll try and sort something out.
Have a look at gpsVP if you haven't already.
It saves your tracks to a folder in My Documents.
http://gpsvp.garminmapsearch.com/
Awesomeness:
http://aeguerre.free.fr/Public/PocketPC/NoniGPSPlot/EN/index.php
http://www.vodafonebetavine.net/web/SunsetGPSLogger/
Try NoniGPSPlot. Very good.
Edit: Woops. I see it has already been suggested. Still it's probably worth mentioning twice.
Hello,
just another idea - there are some GPS - devices out with built - in logging functionality. eg Wintec WBT-201 which I use.
Completly independent for about 12 h.
If you need to convert GPS information to a special format try gpsbabel.
gecko
Here's a quick background on my situation. I'm a college student and
for my thesis project I've decided to develop a "campus navigator" app
to assist incoming students in getting acquainted with the campus.
This is a year long project so at this point I'm partially
troubleshooting and partially trying to find out if my ideas are going
to run me into walls later down the road.
So as not to have an overwhelmingly long post, I'll just ask about my
current issues for now. The app opens up and allows the user to select
"Map" or "Navigate". I started working with map first because it
should be significantly simpler.
Current State:
The following currently works: hitting the map button displays a .png
of my campus's map (located at (couldn't post the link, so go to brockport.edu and search "campus map" for an image of the map)).
I've cropped the picture to only show the numbered buildings (i.e. the
oval track at the bottom, erie canal along the top, and blank spaces
on left/right near streets are all removed). The resulting image is
923x630.
Using the multi-touch pan/zoom code from Hello, Android! (3rd Edition)
(source code folder Touchv2 available at book's website), the map
display page allows the user to pinch zoom and pan the image. Here's
my first issue. With this implementation, the user is able to pan the
picture out of the screen or zoom out until it only takes up a pixel
or two. Is there any better implementation that will not allow the
user to pan beyond the borders of the image or zoom out past the image
size?
This feeds into my next issue, the "Where I want to be" part. Ideally,
I'd like the map display to use a location manager, and upon location
change, draw a circle where the user is standing. As far as projecting
latitude/longitude to pixel coordinates on the campus.png, that's just
math and I can figure that part out. My question is, since I'm using
an ImageView to put the png in, how can I draw on this? I've been
searching around all day and it appears that Canvas would be the ideal
way, since you can call drawCircle(x, y, radius, paint). However, I
was unable to find a way to correlate an ImageView to a Canvas and
back. On top of this, I need it to base these draws solely on
the .png's pixel coordinates, not the current display (since the image
may be panned or zoomed somewhere that would affect this).
I know it would be simple to just use Google Maps to implement this,
but if possible I'd strongly prefer to use the campus map, as it
clearly depicts all the walkways and buildings on the campus.
Any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated. I just wanted to
ask early on so I don't make a fatal mistake and have to redesign it a
month before it's due. If you want to see any of my code, just let me
know.
-Mikey
anyone have any ideas? My thesis director is breathing down my neck to make steady progress, but I'm not confident in which direction to continue.
I think this is a great idea:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread662169/pg1
I have an idea for a UFO Sightings App that I want to share with you all. I'm sharing it because I have zero intention of making it. I don't have the skill or the money to it. I am sharing this with you because I would like to see it get made. I want no compensation in any form for this idea.
So here is the idea: Want to see a UFO? Yeah? Here is an app for that...
When someone with this app sees a UFO he/she must quickly open the app and hit the "Report A UFO Sighting In Progess" button. This would open a scroll menu that gives the witness different options that would help describe what is being seen. ie, saucer, glowing orbs, unknown aircraft, chemtrail, planet x...Once selected another scroll menu would pop up asking estimated altitude ie, 0-1000ft.,1000-10,000ft, 10,000ft-40,000ft., space...One last scroll menu would pop up asking the UFOs direction of travel ie, north, south, east, west, static. Once this info has been given the app switches over to the phones built in camera or video. The app will place an overlay or HUD that gives information on the screen and is recorded as the witness films the event. The information displayed would include direction/heading, time/date, inclination, as well as a timecode stamp to each frame of footage. When the witness stops recording, a button type option will appear asking "Do you wish to stop recording this sighting?" If "yes" is clicked a copy of the sighting is immediatley sent to the "UFOster (or whatever you name the app) Website."
Clicking "No" would bring back the phones camera. One last menu option would be "UFO Sighting Advise." This gives tips on what to do, how to film, what to show, and other info to best capture the UFO.
Here is what makes this App really cool. As soon as the UFO witness answers the three questions, after selecting the report button, an alert goes out IMMEDIATELY to ANYONE who has the app on their phone. So if you have the app you'd recieve a message that would say "ATTENTION! Glowing orbs have been reported __ miles from your location (amount of miles from you based on the witnesses location detected by the phones GPS) and is heading __ (the direction reported by the witness) at an altitude of __ (based on which option the witness choose). This message would then ask if you would like to open "UFOster?"(or whatever you name the app)
When you open the app from the alert message prompt it takes you straight to the phones camera/video with a different overlay or HUD. This HUD has all the same info as a original witness would have but with the addition of a small red arrow that points you in the direction of the reported event. This makes it easy for the directionally challeged to know where to look. Once you start recording you become a new witness and your footage is sent to the website once you stop. This will help stop CGI trickery to help limit hoaxing.
Safegaurds against hoaxing should include limiting the distrobution of the app to people 17 years of age and older. A user rating system and "report hoax/bogus alert" option should be included in the app. Users who have been reported as hoaxers will not have their reports distributed.
Customization options should allow the user to decide the radius of sighting alerts. For example, someone may choose to only recieve alerts within a 30 mile radius. App users may also report a sighting that is no longer in progress in which alerts are not sent out to the app community. The option to be alerted of only specific types of UFOs should be available as well.
The purpose of this app is to gather more witness, more footage, and more camera angles of UFO events. This would greatly increase the chances of putting to rest the age old question, are we alone? Imagine, if a UFO sighting happened in Los Angeles, seen by a witness with this app and we had a few thousand people with it on their phones in the area. Imagine the footage you might get! Imagine the traffic to your website when everyone comes to see the collection from the event.
Thanks for reading. I hope someone out there makes this!
Best of luck,
Quantum D.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would someone be interested in creating an app for UFO sightings?
That's a great idea, except you would need some server with lots of storage for all those videos and a good connection for it which won't be cheap.
I can't help you out now though, I'm taking a java course this semester so down the road perhaps.
Sweet idea. I could have used it a couple of times. The video storrage can be your google account linked to youtube. Pictures can be shared via p2p. If someone starts this app, I will donate time and money.
Really great idea. I have to say you did a fantastic job. please share and update any progress.
soo...whats is going with the app?
I'm studying for software engineering, and I wish to take on a small project involving making an android app.
The app is expected to involve GPS/google maps, the camera and requires object recognition.
Before starting to actually develop the app, I wish to make a proper sketch for how I'm going to do it. I was wondering if the following already exist as freeware and are possible:
GPS- does it return a X/Y coordinates only, or X/Y/Z (meaning, does it tell the phone how high it is above sea level?)
Google maps/Google earth- is it possible to get the app to take information such as a city layout from it? Also, does it include height information for the ground?
Camera and object recognition- the app is expected to "look" using the camera, and needs to recognize objects. The level of object details is not very important, but it should be able to recognize certain things such as roads, buildings, men and such.
Thanks for the assistance,
Raledon
Raledon said:
I'm studying for software engineering, and I wish to take on a small project involving making an android app.
The app is expected to involve GPS/google maps, the camera and requires object recognition.
Before starting to actually develop the app, I wish to make a proper sketch for how I'm going to do it. I was wondering if the following already exist as freeware and are possible:
GPS- does it return a X/Y coordinates only, or X/Y/Z (meaning, does it tell the phone how high it is above sea level?)
Google maps/Google earth- is it possible to get the app to take information such as a city layout from it? Also, does it include height information for the ground?
Camera and object recognition- the app is expected to "look" using the camera, and needs to recognize objects. The level of object details is not very important, but it should be able to recognize certain things such as roads, buildings, men and such.
Thanks for the assistance,
Raledon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know about an android open source app called GPS share, which will give us a link of our current location, and allow to send that location as a SMS or any message(WhatsApp,BBM,etc).
If you want i could give you the link to the app page(if i can find it).
SufiyanSadiq said:
I know about an android open source app called GPS share, which will give us a link of our current location, and allow to send that location as a SMS or any message(WhatsApp,BBM,etc).
If you want i could give you the link to the app page(if i can find it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After talking with a few people, I've come to realize how much of a problem object recognition is for computers, and that even simple tasks like recognizing roads, people and buildings can be a problem. Until I can solve this issue in a decent fashion, I'll have to put the project on hold.
Thanks for the help, though. I'll look the app up if/when I can continue the project.