Illusion SDK: An Augmented Reality Engine for Flash 11

Abstract

This thesis presents Illusion SDK: a general, extensible framework for augmented reality (AR) applications. Illusion provides loosely coupled or decoupled abstractions of sensors, trackers, and compositors. Implementations are optimized for particular use cases. Illusion’s architecture depends on only an event system and a 3D scene graph, so it is highly portable. Wrapping of third-party trackers is supported. Illusion’s current implementation targets Flash 11.4 and integrates with the Alternativa3D 8 graphics engine. To our knowledge, Illusion’s support for wrapping third-party trackers is unique among toolkits targeting the GPU-accelerated Web. Illusion performs well on MacBook Pro 13" mid-2010, where an intensive camera application can exceed 45 FPS. Generally, Illusion should perform well on hardware that uses shared video memory. Optimizations are needed for hardware that uses dedicated video memory. These optimizations are problematic in Flash 11.4 but should not generally be problematic in ports to other platforms.