News

Trial with extern partners

12.02.2007
Several industry partners offered real-life trials scenarios to be tested during the next three months.

Release of the ULTRA hardware

07.02.2007
The new hardware of the ULTRA system has been released. The head-mounted display is connected to the PDA with only one cable and has integrated camera, display, and microphone and earphone. The complete system has autonomy of 4 hours and weights less than 450 g.

ULTRA software release

07.02.2007
Following the hardware release the final version of the ULTRA software has been delivered. The authoring tool suite allows for quick creation of a 3D maintenance manual. The runtime system offers live camera tracking of machines and guides the user through the animation of the maintenance tasks, while offering handfree operation through voice-commands and remote expert support.

ULTRA presented at the IST-2006 Event at Helsinki

21.-23.11.2006
The ULTRA system has been demonstrated at the European IST-event. The demonstration was a maintenance scenario on a machine of the Rittal company. Both, the authoring tools and the runtime system were presented. The system has been tried by many visitors and the partners discussed about future possible applications. Overall, judging from the visitor feedback, the ULTRA system made a positive impression.

Description of the ULTRA presentation can be found under:
http://europa.eu.int

ULTRA - Ultra Portable Augmented Reality for Industrial Maintenance Applications

Patrick Riess, Didier Stricker, Gerrit Voss, Wolfgang Müller Wittig
CG Topics 6/2006

SMIL editor conforms to SMIL 2.0 Basic profile

01.09.2006
The new Release of the SMIL Editor is conformant with the SMIL 2.0 Basic profile. This profile implements only a subset of the SMIL 2.0 standard, while maintaining document interoperability between devices profiles built for different needs. This is clearly more suited to devices with low capabilities, like a handheld device or a cell-phone.

SMIL editor conforms to SMIL 2.0 Basic profile

01.09.2006
The new Release of the SMIL Editor is conformant with the SMIL 2.0 Basic profile. This profile implements only a subset of the SMIL 2.0 standard, while maintaining document interoperability between devices profiles built for different needs. This is clearly more suited to devices with low capabilities, like a handheld device or a cell-phone.

Workflow authoring tool now XMI compatible

21.08.2006
The new Release of the workflow authoring tool is now fully compatible with the XML Metadata Interchange (XMI). The XMI is an OMG standard for exchanging metadata information via Extensible Markup Language (XML). It can be used for any metadata whose metamodel can be expressed in Meta-Object Facility (MOF). This way the workflow model can be exported/imported to/from any Tool that supports the XMI format.

Presentation at ESTG

15.05.2006
ULTRA was presented in Workshop about Augmented reality at ESTG (Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Leiria)

Powerful rendering on PDA

04.05.2006
The open-source higly complex and powerful visualisation software OpenSG (www.opensg.org) runs now on PDA platform e.g. under Windows Mobile 05. The software relies on OpenGL ES and offers advanced rendering techniques for PDA applications such as augmented reality, product presentation and games.

Camera based and automatic registration on PDA.

21.04.2006
A new automatic camera calibration system has been integrated into the ULTRA runtime system. The CAD model is converted into a line model with is automatically matched into the image. Augmented Reality registration is therefore totally automatic. This work on PDA on a "live" picture taken on site. After registration, virtual manual are presented directly onto the image.

Robust marker-based tracking on PDA

10.04.2006
A new and particulary robust marker-based tracking system has been developed and integrated within ULTRA. Very small markers can be detected reliably even under bad lighting conditions. High precision is achieved thanks non-linear optimisation of the camera pose computation. With this technology, it is easy to calibrate a real scene and place virtual information onto live video images.

"ULTRA: An Augmented Reality system for handheld platforms, targeting industrial maintenance applications"

A. Makri, D. Arsenijevic, J. Weidenhausen, P. Eschler, D. Stricker, O. Machui, C. Fernandes, S. Maria, G. Voss, N. Ioannidis
11th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia, Ghent, Belgium

ULTRA demonstration at ISMAR 2005 in Vienna

Oct. 2005:
The complete ULTRA system (authoring and runtime) have been presented at ISMAR 2005 through posters and live presentation.

Ultra Leaflet available

22.03.05:
The Ultra Leaflet is now available for download.

Ultra Presentation

05.02.05:
ULTRA was presented at ENEI 2005 – 1º Encontro Nacional de Estudantes de Informática