Amazing 3d iPhone app | Hacker News Reader

Amazing 3d iPhone app

kode80.com

31 pointsdavidedicillo18 comments

As you would expect, it works much better if you close one eye - with binocular vision the effect mostly disappears.

If you watched the video, you've pretty much seen the extent of the app.

I was disappointed to see that it was $0.99. I expect something a little more functional, like a game or something that lets me play with the parameters for $0.99.

There was an iPhone game released in July that uses the same effect for a ball in maze type game.

http://www.dromsynt.com/diorama/

I started something similar a while ago, but more like a window manager. It would track the user's movement and recalculate all the window positions based on the perceived head position - making the monitor more like a real window. This would enable you to peek behind window edges by moving your head to the side or up/down.

The main barriers I faced was the processing power required to monitor the user's position accurately - needing a camera with relatively good resolution (to get accurate depth perception) and good frame rate (to reduce latency). Also, what to do when another person enters the scene? (Keep tracking the primary / previous target)

Also, using it as a 3d desktop / window manager is probably not worth that much drag on your system - but I could see it being quite useful for cad systems / 3d modelling / prototype development.

Also, developing this way could lead to some interesting developments in the UI field - there's already some development here for the disabled, so is not entirely new - but hasn't really made it to the mainstream desktop...

That's impressive, but it seems like more of an exercise for the developer. Its probably something I'd look at once and forget about.

its a bit sluggish on my 3g....certainly not as impressive as in the video

Nice video. Choppy on my phone. I want my dollar back.

I bought it and didn't find it that impressive but don't regret the purchase as such. One of the biggest issues is that the viewing angle of the iPhone 3G's screen is so poor that when you turn it at the harder angles, you can barely see it.. or maybe I need to crank my brightness up to max to compensate.

There's a Nintendo DSi games based on this concept:

http://tinycartridge.com/post/413663037/dsi-motion-tracking-...

I believe they use the built in camera to sense motion, as there's no accelerometer in the DSi.

I just bought it ($0.99) and it is pretty cool. It feels very physical. However, there is some noise in the accelerometer that causes some slight jiggling as you hold it. (Perhaps my phone is starting to die -- I wouldn't doubt it.) Some dampening here might help, but that would introduce latency.

There are only really 3 models/rooms so it is only really good for showing off to other people.

They should use this technique for the stack-peeking feature on the Nexus One gallery app: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E1mSSBKEPU

I think this is nice as a proof of concept, but there's really no meat to it. I could see some pretty innovative games being possible with these methods though.

This isn't a new idea, in fact here's an app that does the same thing with nude women. NSFW, obviously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8U6ik6ryQo

I suspect this got removed from the app store in the recent smut purge, though.

That's not the same thing. Your video shows an app rendering frames of animation back and forth using the accelerometer data. The app in the posting uses the sensor data to calculate the orientation of the device and then uses that to manipulate the 3d engine camera location and orientation to create an illusion you are peeking to a 3d world.

Looks interesting from the video... but is it really as compelling in person?

It's nothing like the Johnny Chung Lee videos, but it's about as compelling and well-executed as the technique allows. I was at least 99 cents-worth amused.

For maximum effect, you need one for each eye, and some head-tracking gear.

iDesktopVR provides the effect for free, but for simple targets only

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