Now that the iPad 2 has a front facing-camera and some decent horsepower under the hood, there’s a lot of potential for really interesting camera-plus-screen co-ordination hacks. The clever folks over at the Engineering Human-Computer Interaction Research group have managed to combine a feed from the front-facing camera, with a bit of software wizardry, to track the position of a person’s head in 3D in real-time.
They call it Head-Coupled Perspective and the result, as you can see above and past the break, is a 3D representation on the 2D screen that moves when you do. Like looking through a small window, the dynamically adapting 3D effect is pretty convincing, at least on camera, and it’s not just the iPad 2 that can get in on the action; the iPhone 4 can be kitted out too. Considering all you need is a front-facing camera, something everything capable of running apps from Apple comes packing, we could see some pretty ingenious 3D application interfaces that don’t just rely on tilting the device.
Currently it’s just a tech demo, but there’s a possibility of an app on the cards in the near future. For the meantime, hit the break to check out HCP in action on the iPad 2.
Continue reading iPad 2 gets glasses-free 3D display using front-facing camera for head tracking
iPad 2 gets glasses-free 3D display using front-facing camera for head tracking originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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