Augmented 3d comes to flash supporting browsers everywhere!!!

Earlier this month i mentioned this cool Mini Cooper Augmented 3d print adThere were several problems i may or may not have mentiond at the time..
1)it uses a browser plugin that only seemed to work in IE.
2)Creating the content required the designer/developer to shell out approximately RS 5.9lakhs for the proprietary software

Today through the magic of Twitter Search i found out about the FLARToolKit which is...

"FLARToolKit is AS3 version of ARToolKit. But it is not ported from the original C version but ported from Java version which is called NyARToolKit. (NyARToolKit seems to executes much faster than the original C version after the great effort of nyatla)

FLARToolkit will detect the marker from input image and calculate the camera position in the three dimension space. Something like Helper library are planned to add but further processing like synthesize the 3D Graphics needs to implemented by yourself.

FYI, Papervision3D 2.0 (Greate White) is used for this sample. (Using Sandy in early stage of porting FLARToolKit, so you may use other library easily) "-source: The Spark Project

which roughly translates to -
1) Costs "0" if your using it for non commercial use
2) works in any browser that support the latest flash player

heres a really cool example of it in action


visit the awesome GE Ecoimagination site here

I tried it out myself at home. Didn't have a printer here, so i just traced it off of the laptop screen, and filled it in with a ballpoint pen!!

And it WORKS!!!!
Heres the Wind Power Themed one


and heres the Solar Power Themed one


guaranteed to make you jump off your chair :)

Another site that appears to be using flash as well as the google maps api is earthinyourhands by WWF

this one asks for your name, and location, and actually shows you where you are on the globe...which can be turned by dragging the mouse!!