Augmented Reality (AR) was a key area of research at YDreams. Since the beginning of the company we had a clear vision of the possibilities of AR, inspired by the early work of people like Steven Feiner and the experiments on synthetic image of our own co-founder Edmundo Nobre. In 2005 we were creating our first experiments on 3D projected AR, featuring space mapping to enable occlusions and shadow casting. We also dynamically mapped real objects, creating realtime physics models so they could interact with digital objects.

Later we started experimenting with human input interaction and the possibilities people becoming actors inside the AR simulation.

Around 2008 we had built a product called virtual sightseeing, an AR kiosk that displayed a layer of information over the scenery of tourist attraction sites. This kiosk turned 360 degrees and contained a touch screen, motorized cameras with zoom/tilt and a GSM data connection.

In 2009 we were already established in a rising AR market, which allowed us to create several new products and collaborate with many companies around the world. Two of those partners were Canesta and Primesense, both Silicon Valley startups focused the development of depth sensing technologies. In partnership with these companies we created groundbreaking AR concept applications. With depth sensing, AR simulations could become much more accurate, opening the doors for much more complex and rewarding interactions. Both Canesta and Primesense were later bought by Microsoft to create the Kinect controller for the Xbox.

These simulations led us to win the Auggies award of best AR application at the 2010 Augmented Reality Expo (now known as AWE), with juries such as Mark Billinghurst and scifi author Bruce Sterling.

Patents

We are the inventors of three significant patents:

• US8405680B1 - Various methods and apparatuses for achieving augmented reality.

• US8624962B2 - Systems and methods for simulating three-dimensional virtual interactions from two-dimensional camera images.

• US20120170800A1 - Systems and methods for continuous physics simulation from discrete video acquisition.