What do you think about the idea of an augmented reality engine or toolkit for the Nintendo DSi? As a general definition, augmented reality takes computer graphics/data and overlays this on top of a display of the real world in real-time. In the context of the Nintendo DSi, this augmented reality engine would most likely leverage the real-time display from the DSi's cameras. The engine would overlay graphical objects and information on this display to enhance entertainment or educational software for the DSi. For more information on augmented reality and examples take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality We are a group of students in an Engineering Entrepreneurship class tasked with shaping a general technology into a customer-driven product concept. Our goals with this project are entirely academic and we have no industry affiliations or commercial goals. With this thread, we hope to get some input from professionals, students, or hobbyists with experience developing games (not necessarily for the Nintendo DSi) about this concept of an augmented reality engine for the Nintendo DSi. We are interested in all types of feedback about this concept. Some example questions are: Do you see their being a need in the market for an augmented reality engine or toolkit for the Nintendo DSi? What customers would be most interested in purchasing or licensing such an engine? Professional studios? Small developers? Hobbyists? What factors would cause a studio to build their own augmented reality engine in-house as opposed to licensing/purchasing a third-party toolkit? What technical aspects of an augmented reality engine would developers be most concerned with? What features would developers demand from such an engine? What features would developers deem valuable but not necessary? What types of software or games could most obviously benefit from incorporating augmented reality features? These questions are really just to kick off the conversation, and we want to encourage any free form discussion about the product concept in general. Thanks ahead of time for your input!

I'd start out with a feasibility study...

Just how much horsepower are you going to burn up doing your image input processing before you get around to marking up your augmentation? Sure it is a powerful little handheld, but it isn't that great of a platform.

There are some examples of augmented reality apps running on mobile platforms, such as:

Nokia N95 - http://cellagames.com/
T-Mobile G1 Phone/Google Android - http://www.mobilizy.com/wikitude.php

What specifically would be the biggest technical limitations of the DSi? CPU power? Camera quality?

Also is anyone experienced with the development cycle for DSi games/software? What tools are currently used? How does one work with Nintendo during this process?

AGR is in the early stages of dev. Other then the military, you can count on your fingers the number of people doing it.

[Edited by - Calin on April 15, 2009 4:24:13 AM]

Quote: Original post by trav3dThere are some examples of augmented reality apps running on mobile platforms, such as:

Nokia N95 - http://cellagames.com/
T-Mobile G1 Phone/Google Android - http://www.mobilizy.com/wikitude.php

What specifically would be the biggest technical limitations of the DSi? CPU power? Camera quality?

CPU power. Those phones you mentioned have at least 2-3 times more CPU power than the DSi.

Quote: Original post by trav3dAlso is anyone experienced with the development cycle for DSi games/software? What tools are currently used? How does one work with Nintendo during this process?

For Nintendo dev tools and info you have to register at http://www.warioworld.com/.

You need to be a registered developer to get access to the devkits (Which are several thousand dollars each), and to produce anything on the DS / DSi.

As others have said, the DSi really isn't that powerful; you'll have difficulty doing anything much at all over the top of video.

Quote: Original post by Evil Steve
You need to be a registered developer to get access to the devkits (Which are several thousand dollars each), and to produce anything on the DS / DSi.

As others have said, the DSi really isn't that powerful; you'll have difficulty doing anything much at all over the top of video.

Not strictly true. You can produce .nds binaries using the homebrew devkit just fine. With the homebrew devkit you also have full access to everything including the ARM7 (I have no idea if the ARM7 still exists in the DSi?).

Although at the moment the homebrew cards available for the DSi only give you access to "normal DS mode", so no camera access :(

Thanks everyone for all of the feedback and information. We've created two online surveys to try to evaluate the important features of an augmented reality engine/middleware for the Nintedo DSi. If you have 5 minutes, we would really appreciate if you took the time to provide your responses. We will collect results and post them to this thread for anyone interested.

Survey 1: Concept test

Survey 2: Feature comparison

Thanks everyone!