Construct internet: Tutorials

Tutorials

20 Feb 2013

Recovery of deleted SMS in Mobile Phone

Have you ever thought that,if the deleted messages can be bring bak to your inbox of your phone,like example i have deleted one imporatant SMS (message) which can bring back or recollect the deleted messages to my meassage indbox

you will feel happy to know that htere are number of different software that can help you to recover meassages according to your need and want ,but not all softwares of meassage SMS recovery are free and you should purchace the software.However if your using Nokia branded cell or phone you might be in luck ,because there is a free full version SMS message recovery software which mostly works for Nokia phones,

In this post i will be explaning you all step by step to use this software in your phone in order to get the deleted messages bak to your phone from

SIM card or from PHONE memory

first download and install thesoftware FExplorer, excellent file manager and also sends files via bluetooth.

Launch FExplorer and navigate to C: if you use Phone Memory to store your messages (default) and D: if you use Storage Card as your SMS storage location.
Now navigate to and open "system" folder.
Now open the "mail" folder.
This folder should contain many folders named similar to 0010001_s etc. with files named similar to 00100000 etc. These files are the actual deleted messages. Simply, use the FExplorer inbuild text viewer to view these files. You will need to browse through every folder and open all files inside them until you get the required SMS.

Thsi tool includes more great fetures like:

Cut, copy & paste files
Set your backlight to be permanently on
Display free space available
View file with inbuilt text viewer
Check date modified & size
Cut, copy, create & paste directories
Take screenshots
File find. (although this only works within a directory)
Compress memory - increasing available free memory ...and much more.
Send files via bluetooth. (may be necessary to rename .sis to .sis_)

All of all FExplorer is a file explorer application for your Series 60 phone. With a wide range of features, tips and tricks, FExplorer will become one of your favorite mobile applications!if we use for the deleted

post your boubts and cooments if you have any problems regarding useage

Send Unlimited Mails At a Time

WARNING: ALL THE INFORMATION DISPLAYED IN THIS POST ARE FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE ONLY I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES

somebody created a PHP script which allow you to send emails from any name and email address of your choice This script can be found here

Anonymous Email Sender Script

Follow this procedure step-by-step

Goto X10 Hosting and register a new account.
Download my Anonymous Email Sender Script (sendmail.rar).
Login to your FreeWebHostingArea Account and click on File Manager.
Upload the sendmail.php, pngimg.php and bg1.PNG files to the server.
Set permissions for sendmail.php, pngimg.php and bg1.PNG to 777.
Now type the following URL
http://e.freewebhostingarea.com/404.html
NOTE: your site must be substituted by the name of the sub domain that you have chosen during the registration process.
Use the script to send Anonymous Emails. Enjoy!!!
If you have any problem. Please post your comments…

WARNING: ALL THE INFORMATION DISPLAYED IN THIS POST ARE FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE ONLY I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES

15 Feb 2013

Make a nameless-invisible folder

Right-click on the desktop.
Select New Folder.
To give this folder a new name press Alt and 0160 (numbers from the n

umber keypad, i.e on the right side of the keyboard).

Tada!! A folder without any name is created!

Now right-click it and go to Properties > Customize > Change Icon.
A box containing list of icons will open up. Select an icon that has got no image. (Watch the video for detail)
Click Apply > OK.
Now a Nameless-Invisible folder is created.

It is found that one may not be able to delete this folder normally. (It is deleted normally in XP)
You need to delete this folder from command prompt.
Or you can delete it by zipping the folder using WinRar by selecting the option "Delete files after archiving".

Use Checkboxs for multi-files Selection in Win 7

In order to select multiple files for an operation such as copying, moving or deleting in Windows Explorer, we generally, Ctrl-clicking every file you want to select.
But if you're mouse-centric, there's a way to select multiple files in Windows 7 using only your mouse, via check boxes.

To enable this:

In Windows Explorer, click Organize, and then select "Folder and search options."
Click the View tab.
In Advanced Settings, scroll down and check the box next to "Use check boxes to select items." Click OK.

From now on, when you hover your mouse over a file in Windows Explorer, a check box will appear next to it; click it to select the file. Once a file is selected, the checked box remains next to it; if you uncheck it, the box will disappear when you move your mouse away.

13 Feb 2013

How to Password Protect USB Flash Drives

Flash drive is portable, small tool that can be use to save and transfer data between computers, so most people use it to store sensitive data such as credit card number, bank account statements, plans, password and so many vital and private data.

Due to the fact that flash drives are portable, they can be easily carried around and there is high chance for it to be misplaced, stolen or lost. It is highly advisable to keep the data on your flash drive secure so that when any person finds it, they would not misuse it.

There are so many tools available in the market ranging from free to paid ware that can be use to password protect flash drives. But today, am going to share the one I’ve used and have helped to protect my flash drive.

USB Flash Security is a tiny software that helps protect USB drives by providing strong encryption system (AES 256). This tool can be easily use by connecting your USB device to your computer and then install the program on the device. So after installation, no other person would be able to access the files stored on the drive without password.

Download USB Flash Security from HERE, download the free edition for non-commercial/personal use. After successful download, install and then go to USB Flash Security Installation Guide page for information on how to use it.

It would be too late when you notice your pen drive was lost or stolen. Why no protect your data now?

2 Feb 2013

Run .exe File on a Webpage

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTuLsQZlh00rp6-a-kEFehZKgdfethwTm4BkoNbE9p6WVH2vQRN

There are certain scenarios where you need to run your .EXE file through HTML page. In this blog I will show you how can you achieve this task on html page by using JavaScript.
<a href="javascript:LaunchApp()">Click here to Execute your file</a>

The above code will call a user defined function call LaunchApp() which you can see in the following code snippets.

THE BASICS

Unity website: http://unity3d.com/

Which license do you need? http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses

Download the free version of Unity to get started: http://unity3d.com/unity/download/

If you have no previous experience with Unity, start with these six video tutorials which give a quick overview of the Unity interface and some important features
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/video/

Continue with a more in-depth text-based walk through of very basic Unity functionality and work flow http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/Unity%20Basics.html

To get you started with scripting, have a look at the following PDF document. It was written for an older version of Unity, but still covers relevant aspects of scripting with JavaScript. (2 hours to complete, no previous JavaScript knowledge required)
http://docwiki.unity3d.com/uploads/Main/Scripting%20Tutorial.pdf

Unity features three scripting languages; JavaScript, C#, and Boo. Depending on your scripting language of choice, you might want to choose different tutorials to get started with Unity. Each tutorial link will also mention which scripting language is used. Most Unity tutorials available on the web are using JavaScript. Notice that JavaScript is commonly used for web applications. Unforunately, books which cover JavaScript are normally of little use for Unity's implementation of JavaScript. But worry not, a vast amount of tutorials will follow...

If you want to familiarize yourself with Unity's functionality more, browse through Unity's manual. You can skip the “Basics” section as we already went through this (see above).
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/index.html

For a printable version of the 600+ pages manual, see
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/printable.html

Unity Videos (including Tutorials)http://video.unity3d.com/

Live Online Unity Classes (currently for basic introduction to Unity)
http://unity3d.com/support/online-training/

A complete list of Unity books and their descriptions can be found here: http://gamefromscratch.com/page/Unity-Book-Roundup.aspx

1) Author Will Goldstone guides you through a complete project and introduces most of Unity's functionality (using JavaScript). The book is available as print and digital version and all needed assets and resources can be downloaded with the book. It's been a helpful investment from my point of view.
http://www.packtpub.com/unity-game-development-essentials/book
This forum thread discusses the book and its content.
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=29041
The updated version of this book for Unity 3 can be found on Amazon.
Amazon Link

2) Ryan Henson Creighton more recently published "Unity 3D Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide". Find out more about the book here: https://www.packtpub.com/unity-3d-game-development-by-example-beginners-guide/book
and the forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/61349-Unity-3D-Game-Development-by-Example

3) Craig Stevenson and Simon Quiq (publisher Deep Pixel) released "Unity 3 Blueprints: A practical guide to Indie games development". Their website provides all the art assests and code to create four classic games from scratch (Match the Pairs, Top-Down Shooter, Tower Defense, Marble Madness).
Amazon link

4) Sue Blackman wrote a book in which she guides the reader through the development of a Javascript-based project which resembles an adventure-type of game. Sue highlights the viewpoint of an artist working in game development. See the forum thread and the amazon link.

5) Coming up on 07/17/2012, Deniz Opal, Sean McCracken and Mike Renwick are publishing "Professional Unity and C#: Multi-Platform 3D Game Development" on Amazon. See this link for a special pre-order price. As the name implies, this book will focus on C# development.

UNITY eBOOKS

If you rather prefer to jump into the action, skip the manual and basic resources altogether and have a look at several books which have been published on Game Development with Unity (several recently added on 03/22/2012).
A complete list of Unity books and their descriptions can be found here: http://gamefromscratch.com/page/Unity-Book-Roundup.aspx

1) Author Will Goldstone guides you through a complete project and introduces most of Unity's functionality (using JavaScript). The book is available as print and digital version and all needed assets and resources can be downloaded with the book. It's been a helpful investment from my point of view.
http://www.packtpub.com/unity-game-development-essentials/book
This forum thread discusses the book and its content.
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=29041
The updated version of this book for Unity 3 can be found on Amazon.
Amazon Link

2) Ryan Henson Creighton more recently published "Unity 3D Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide". Find out more about the book here: https://www.packtpub.com/unity-3d-game-development-by-example-beginners-guide/book
and the forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/61349-Unity-3D-Game-Development-by-Example

3) Craig Stevenson and Simon Quiq (publisher Deep Pixel) released "Unity 3 Blueprints: A practical guide to Indie games development". Their website provides all the art assests and code to create four classic games from scratch (Match the Pairs, Top-Down Shooter, Tower Defense, Marble Madness).
Amazon link

4) Sue Blackman wrote a book in which she guides the reader through the development of a Javascript-based project which resembles an adventure-type of game. Sue highlights the viewpoint of an artist working in game development. See the forum thread and the amazon link.

5) Coming up on 07/17/2012, Deniz Opal, Sean McCracken and Mike Renwick are publishing "Professional Unity and C#: Multi-Platform 3D Game Development" on Amazon. See this link for a special pre-order price. As the name implies, this book will focus on C# development.

LATEST VERSION 4

You are now faced with the choice of tackling example projects provided by Unity Technologies or jump straight into user-generated tutorials. As the example projects are quite complex, I would suggest working through some video tutorials first. Nonetheless, here are the links for Unity's official example projects. They can be taken completely apart, reverse-engineered and reused for own projects.

3D Platform Game
http://unity3d.com/support/resources/tutorials/3d-platform-game

2D Platform Game
http://unity3d.com/support/resources/tutorials/2d-gameplay-tutorial

Iphone tutorials and more example projects
http://unity3d.com/support/resources/tutorials/

More Unity Example projects
http://unity3d.com/support/resources/example-projects/

Car Tutorial by Unity Technologies
http://unity3d.com/support/resources/tutorials/car-tutorial

Official Unity Tech. Tutorial for the Animation View - 3-part-series of video tutorials
http://unity3d.com/support/resources/tutorials/video-animation-view

WHOLE TUTORIALS

3dbuzz.com
Series of Unity tutorials in C# (among many other tutorials)
registration required (free)
website - http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_home.php
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/37093-Over-7-hours-of-Unity-Training-Videos-Download-them-now!

Advanced Media Lab at North Carolina State University
http://vimeo.com/channels/ncsuunity

BurgZergArcade - Unity Tutorials
Hack&Slash Tutorial using C# and plenty of other information and useful tutorials
website - http://www.burgzergarcade.com/

CannedMushroom Video Tutorials (Unity and other software)
This is a series of projects intended for 2-hour self-instructed lessons using JavaScript
http://www.youtube.com/user/cannedmushrooms

Car Tutorial
Physics Setup for a car, AI for driving around racetrack (from 2009)
http://www.gotow.net/andrew/blog/?page_id=78

Catlike Coding C# Tutorials - text-based tutorials that walk you through creating simple projects, the most complex being a side-scroller game. http://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/

GamerToGameDeveloper Tutorials Series 1
This series of video tutorials covers the development of a multiplayer first person shooter prototype from scratch and focuses on C# scripting.
Website: http://www.gamertogamedeveloper.com

GearTech Games
4 Videos on how to work through a project (and more videos)

workflow between Modo and Unity
lightmapping

http://www.geartechgames.com/GearTech_Games/Beginning_a_Project/Beginning_a_Project.html

InfiniteAmmo Tutorial
General Introduction to Unity (3 parts so far)
Some scripting covered using Javascript (e.g. movement controls)
http://infiniteammo.ca/blog/impromptu-unity3d-intro-tutorial/

InsurgentX Advanced Video Tutorials
Series of JavaScript tutorials starting from the very basics and slowly increasing in complexity to build a sophisticated game from scratch
http://www.youtube.com/user/InsurgentXdotcom

LOD Tutorial (Level of Detail, Unity3.5 Pro Feature)
By Manuel Schererhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX-9ofr2D5w

Making Sense of Unity
These video tutorials provide more indepth coverage of unity scripting using Javascript (not meant to be introductory material)

lecture style explanations of concepts
more entertaining and not like most other screen-capture tutorials :)

http://www.youtube.com/etphonemyhome

Paul Bourke - Unity for stereoscopic display (from 2008)
text-based with screenshots
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/miscellaneous/stereographics/Unitystereo/

Paul Bourke – Unity and Idome (from 2008)
text-based with screenshots
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/miscellaneous/domemirror/UnityiDome/

Robotduck - Blog
The blog of this Unity user provides tips on Unity scripting and functionality and showcases some of his projects
http://robotduck.wordpress.com/

Technicat
Introduction to Game Development with Unity including Workflow, Scripting, GUI, Version Control, etc.
http://technicat.com/games/unity.html

Terrain Tutorial
seven videos on how to create terrains in Unity from heightmaps to finish (from 2010)
http://vimeo.com/album/156452

Terrain Tutorial In-Depth
text-based with screenshots
http://www.unifycommunity.com/wiki/index.php?title=Terrain_tutorial
forum thread
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=16941

TornadoTwins Video Tutorials
They show step by step how to create a simple game using Javascript.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TornadoTwins

Unity Gems
A website of text-based tutorials. This is a mix of introductory (intermediate) scripting tutorials and more advanced tutorials. Themes currently cover general tips for Unity scripting, Memory Management, Finite State Machines, Quaternions/Rotations and Coroutines. Some content for Boo and Unity Script is provided, several tips and descriptions are more conceptual and should be helpful regardless of the language that is used.
website: http://unitygems.com/

Unity Jumpstart
Proof of Concept Game to learn creating your own game from the ground up (JavaScript)
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=28433
http://www.unityjumpstart.com/ProofOfConcept_1/

UnityCookie (CGCookie)
A series of tutorials for an introduction to Unity and several scripting video tutorials (using Javascript)
http://cgcookie.com/unity/

UnityScript Basics (Scripting Basics for Noobs)
If you're new to scripting, read up on this good introduction to scripting in Unity. Lots of analogies are provided which makes it really easy to understand. The details are explained for UnityScript, but the introduction is great for any scripting language.
website - http://www.unityscript.com/lessons1/basics.php

Virtual Autonomy
Guide for working with Google SketchUp and Unity
(also shaders and multi-user environments)
text-based with screenshots
http://virtualautonomy.com/blog/index.php/tutorials/

Walker Boys Studio - Unity Tutorials from the Guildhall at SMU (an extensive list of tutorials with more on the way)
http://walkerboystudio.com/html/unity_training___free__.html

Will Goldstone, author of the Unity Game Development book, worked on a series of helpful video tutorials here (using JavaScript):
http://learnunity3d.com/ (also http://learnmesilly.com/).
More recently by Will Goldstone: http://www.unity3dstudent.com/

PAID TUTORIALS

Design3.com (subscription-based tutorials, Unity-related content among other software like Maya, 3DS Max, Photoshop)
http://www.design3.com/software/unity

Digital Tutors - (250+ subscription-based tutorials)
http://www.digitaltutors.com/training/unity-tutorials

Polypusher.net Tai-Pan Development Set Tutorial Series
For an annual payment of 40 Euros, PolyPusher.net offers insights into the complete development process of their RTS Tai-Pan. All assets are included royalty-free and tutorials are delivered as videos or pdf-documents. I have not tested their tutorials yet, but their work seems impressive and of high quality.
website - http://www.polypusher.net/taipan.php
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/104599-Tai-Pan-Development-Set-Tutorial-Series

VTC - Unity tutorial using JavaScript (subscription based content on vtc.com)
http://www.vtc.com/products/Introduction-to-Game-Development-Using-Unity-3D-Tutorials.htm
Unity-Tutorials (mostly paid and some free tutorials)
http://www.unity-tutorials.com/

TOOLS

Unity Extensions

Terrain Toolkit
External Lightmapping Tool
Locomotion System
Explosion Framework
Head Look Controller

http://unity3d.com/support/resources/unity-extensions/
overview of some extensions – Unity youtube and vimeo channels
http://www.youtube.com/user/Unity3D
http://www.vimeo.com/unity3d/videos

Visual C# Express- free IDE for your C# development
http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/#2008-Visual-CS

3DAttack - Tools and Home of Unity Creative Magazine
First Person Shooter Developer Kit
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=53136
website - http://www.3dattack.us/3DAttack/News.html

AngryAnt
One of Unity's developers provides projects to extend Unity's functionality (e.g. pathfinding and AI)
http://angryant.com/
forum thread Path - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/19341-Pathfinding-in-unity-First-Path-1.0-tutorial-now-available!

sturestone's A* Pathfinding (currently version 2.9)
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/67417-A*-Pathfinding-2.9-Is-Released-(Unity-3-Compatible)

Weltenbauer
Augmented Reality / Webcam Input
http://produktion.weltenbauer.com/#/5
forum threads:
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=32613&highlight=toolkit (Webcam Toolkit)
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=11889&highlight=toolkit (ARToolkit Extension)
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=32669&highlight=toolkit (UnityAR)

SeeingMachines FaceAPI / VisionBlaster – Head Tracking in Unity (purchase required)
http://visionblaster.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=62&lang=en
and http://www.seeingmachines.com/product/faceapi/downloads/

Mostly Tigerproof – Using Google Analytics and Unity to track game stats
This is a blog entry about Google Analytics and Unity
http://blog.mostlytigerproof.com/2009/10/06/gathering-statistics-using-google-analytics-and-unity-3d/

Antares Project - Extensive Set of Tools to extend the Unity Editor - Open Source
Also available: Antares.dll (free for non-commercial work)
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=50843

Antares Deformator - Deform your meshes (Beta Version)
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=54290

UniWii – WiiMote implementation
http://www.unifycommunity.com/wiki/index.php?title=UniWii
forum thread
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=7284

Unity Terrain Tools - EasyRoads (purchase required)
http://unityterraintools.com/downloads.php
forum thread
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=23519

Six Times Nothing - Road/Path Tool and River Tool http://www.sixtimesnothing.com/

Dastardly Banana - FPS Weapon Tool, Radar example
http://dastardlybanana.com/Downloads.htm

Starscene Software - Tools, Games and Utilities for Unity (purchase required for utilities)
http://www.starscenesoftware.com
e.g. Vectrosity - Line Drawing Tool
http://starscenesoftware.com/vectrosity.html
Fractscape - Terrain Tool
Stitchscape - Stitch multiple terrains together

GUIX - visual Menu/GUI builder (purchase required)
http://www.ennanzus.com/developer/GUIX/buy.htm

NGUI - GUI builder/editor (purchase required)
http://www.tasharen.com/?page_id=140

EZ Game Saver - saving tool (purchase required)
http://www.anbsoft.com/middleware/ezs/index.htm
Note that I will cover saving to text file in a later blog

Decal Framework - Easily place decals in your scene
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=54613

Visual Logic Editor by NeoDrop (Antares VIZIO, Work in Progress)
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=31132

Nimbus Volumetric Clouds
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=51972

RapidUnity Vehicle Editor Resource Pack
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=56257

Ocean 3D - Ocean Simulation
website: http://www.nikko3d.com/index.php/downloads-2/

ShaderFusion - Node-Based Shader Editor (Requires Unity3)
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=60611

Strumpy Shader Editor - Node-Based Shader Editor
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/56180-Strumpy-Shader-Editor-Beta-3.1-released-(performance-usability-upgrade)

Overview of extensions on UnifyWiki
http://www.unifycommunity.com/wiki/index.php?title=Extensions

LightUp (purchase required)
Extension of Google Sketchup (Lighting Solution) which works nicely for exporting lightmaps to Unity
http://www.light-up.co.uk/

Stereoscopic Solutions
3D Anaglyph System (purchase required)
Stereoskopix3D

Plugin for Kinect's Primesense Camera
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/67982-Kinect-plugin

Unity Web Suite - tutorials and examples in C# to create online content
forum thread - http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/17674-Unity-Web-Suite-(Examples-Tutorials)
website - http://www.nickbreslin.com/2009/04/phphandler-20-released/

Tools for Visual Programming:
Antares Universe - Vizio (forum thread)
cost (as of 05/22/11) Euro 142.50
Visual programming tool similar to the approaches of Quest3D and Virtools.

Playmaker by Hutong Games
cost (as of 05/22/11) Euro 95.00
Visual State Machine Editor (website and forum thread)

uScript by Detox Studios
website and forum thread
Visual Scripting Tool based on UDK's Kismet

Brain Builder by boldai
website and forum thread

New to AndAR (Android Augmented Reality)

Tutorial Details

Technology: Android SDK
Difficulty: Beginner/Intermediate
Estimated Completion Time: 30-60 minutes

Perhaps you’ve heard about augmented reality—it’s a hot topic in mobile right now. Learn about what augmented reality is and how you can leverage this technique in your Android applications in this introductory article.

Defining Augmented Reality

Before we start discussing how to write augmented reality applications, let’s take a step back and define what it is. Wikipedia defines augmented reality as such:
“Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated sensory input, such as sound or graphics. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality.”
Recently mobile developers have begun leveraging augmented reality techniques by taking input from the camera and overlaying images in real-time, usually meshed up with the image to either show where something real-world is (such as an icon for a restaurant) or perhaps a virtual sign or object.
This isn’t to say there aren’t other definitions or looser definitions or implementations of AR around today. One could argue, for instance, that Google Sky Map is augmented reality even though it’s not drawing over the camera view, yet does just about everything else an augmented reality app would do (see figure below). Don’t get too caught up in the definition and simply think of opportunities your applications might benefit from “overlaying” meta-data on real live data. For instance, eBay recently announced that they’re adding an augmented reality feature to their fashion application. This feature allows users to see themselves with different pairs of sunglasses on.

Google Sky Map being used to locate Whirlpool Galaxy by moving phone around

The rest of this tutorial will discuss the various aspects of augmented reality and how they apply to Android. The tutorial will not dive in the specifics of implementation just yet. That’s a bit beyond the scope of this introductory tutorial, but if readers show interest, we can continue down this road and provide some concrete tutorials on this topic.

Why Re-Invent The Wheel? Existing Options for Incorporating Lightweight AR Support in Your Apps

Already feeling overwhelmed? Perhaps you have data that you want others to be able to explore in an augmented reality environment but you don’t want to fully implement AR support in your own applications. If the aspect of pulling it all together in a coherent implementation seems like overkill for your project, what are you to do?
Try using an existing AR service, such as Layar. They provide clients for both the Android and iPhone platforms. For example, the Layar service allows anyone to add data that can be displayed for users and handles the details of the AR. As a bonus, it’s also cross platform, so your data will be made available to their Android and iPhone clients.

Providing Your Own Custom AR Implementations: The Basics

Now that we have a shared definition of augmented reality, let’s discuss how it all fits together and each of the Android components that might be leveraged in your typical AR application.
Your typical AR implementation contains two main parts: the “live” data we’re augmenting and the “meta” data used for the augmentation. For a real-world overlay example, the live data we’re augmenting will usually be a combination of information in the viewfinder of the rear-facing camera, the current location, and the direction the device is facing. This information is then cross-referenced with a list of “meta” data.
For instance, if we want to see the locations of gas stations in the view finder, the AR “service” must have augmentation data for each gas station, including its latitude and a longitude. Using this information, and the direction in which the device/camera is pointing, we can approximate the location of each gas station as an overlay on the view finder window and display a little fuel icon on or above its location.
The augmentation data source (e.g. the list of gas station locations) can be anything, but often it’s a preloaded database or a web service that can filter to nearby points of interest.
The rest of the AR implementation consists of using device camera APIs, graphics APIs, and sensor APIs to overlay the augmentation data over the live data and create a pleasant augmented experience.

Key AR Component #1: Camera Data

Displaying the live feed from the Android camera is the reality in augmented reality. The camera data is available by using the APIs available within the android.hardware.Camera package.
If your application doesn’t need to analyze frame data, then starting a preview in the normal way by using a SurfaceHolder object with the setPreviewDisplay() method is appropriate. With this method, you’ll be able to display what the camera is recording on the screen for use. However, if your application does need the frame data, it’s available by calling the setPreviewCallback() method with a valid Camera.PreviewCallback object.

Key AR Component #2: Location Data

Just having the camera feed for most augmented reality applications isn’t enough. You’ll also need to determine the location of the device (and therefore its user). To do this, you’ll need to access fine or coarse location information, commonly accessed through the APIs available within the android.location package, with its LocationManager class. This way, your application can listen to location events and use those to determine where “live” items of interest are located in relation to the device.

If you’re building an augmented reality application that will analyze the camera feed with computer vision (that is, where the computer “sees” things by extracting all the information it needs from the input images) to determine where to place augmentation data, you may not need to know the device location. Using computer vision is, in itself, a deep topic currently under research. Most solutions we’ve seen use the OpenCV libraries. More information on OpenCV can be found at the OpenCV wiki.

When location data isn’t used, a “marker” or “tag” is often used. That is, an easily recognizable object where orientation and scale of an object to draw over it can be quickly determined. For instance, AndAR uses a simple marker to draw a cube over it, as a test of AR abilities.

AndAR using marker to show a cube at different orientations and scale

Key AR Component #3: Sensor Data

Sensor data is often important to AR implementations. For example, knowing the orientation of the phone is usually very useful when trying to keep data synchronized with the camera feed.
To determine the orientation of an Android device,you’ll need to leverage the APIS available in the android.hardware.SensorManager package. Some sensors you’re likely to tap include:

Sensor.TYPE_MAGNETIC_FIELD
Sensor.TYPE_ACCELEROMETER
Sensor.TYPE_ROTATION_VECTOR

The use of sensors to allow the user to move the device around and see changes on the screen in relation to it really pulls the user into applications in an immersive fashion. When the camera feed is showing, this is critical, but in other applications, such as those exploring pre-recorded image data (such as with Google Sky Map or Street View), this technique is still very useful and intuitive for users.

Bringing It Together: The Graphics Overlay

Of course, the whole point of augmented reality is to draw something over the camera feed that, well, augments what the user is seeing live. Conceptually, this is as simple as simply drawing something over the camera feed. How you achieve this, though, is up to you.
You could read in each frame from of the camera feed, add an overlay to it, and draw the frame on the screen (perhaps as a Bitmap or maybe as a texture on a 3D surface). For instance, you could leverage the android.hardware.Camera.PreviewCallback class, which allows your application to get frame-by-frame images.
Alternately, you could use a standard SurfaceHolder with the android.hardware.Camera object and simply draw over the top of the Surface, as needed.
Finally, what and how you draw depends upon your individual application requirements—there are both 2D or 3D graphics APIs available on Android, most notably the APIs within the android.graphics and android.opengl packages.

Storing and Accessing Augmentation Data

So where does the augmentation data come from? Generally speaking, you’ll either be getting this data from your own database, which might be stored locally or from a database online somewhere through a web or cloud service. If you’ve preloaded augmentation data on the device, you’ll likely want to use a SQLite database for quick and easy lookups; you’ll find the SQLite APIs in the android.database.sqlite package. For web-based data, you’ll want to connect up to a web service using the normal methods: HTTP and (usually) XML parsing. For this, you can simply use java.net.URL class with one of the XML parsing classes, such as the XmlPullParser class, to parse the results.

Conclusion

Augmented reality is a broad topic that touches on many aspects of Android development and many APIs. In this tutorial, you’ve learned what augmented reality is and what Android components are involved (with related Android APIs). Now you can combine this new knowledge with what you know of the Android SDK to enhance your existing applications or build new augmented reality applications.