I recently found this amazing bit of work being done in Japan that allows you to do augmented reality in java all you need is a webcam and to run the webstart!

Full credit goes to the guys who created this awesome bit of software. It took some digging around and google transalating (most of the site is in japanese) but heres what you need:

The Webstart Link: http://www.ylab.ai.kyutech.ac.jp/~shiva/jws/nyartoolkit/simplelite.jnlp

You also need to print out this file, as this is what the app is looking for via the webcam.

Sample PDF

All you need to do is run the webstart, print that file off and then move it about in front of your webcam. From what I can understand on the website it works on windows and mac (i’d assume linux as well) but my tests on windows didn’t go so well although it worked fine on a mac!

Its great to see they have ported it to Android as well as a bunch of other platforms, makes me wonder how hard it would be to port to Objective C for my iPhone!

Chris