Augmented Reality Development System

ImageTcl is a Multimedia Software Development Environment under development by Charles B. Owen at Media and Entertainment Technology Laboratory at Michgan State University.  ImageTclAR extends ImageTcl with new features in support of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Development.   

You can obtain ImageTclAR here (as of July 30, 2006)

    ImageTcl_2_19_00.zip (50MB)  
    ImageTclAR_2_01_01.zip  (3MB)

You will need to install ImageTcl first to use ImageTclAR.

These are executable distributions.  It is recommended that these be installed in directories off c:\.  While support for spaces in directories is included, the removal of all bugs cannot be guaranteed at this time.

If you do not have Visual Studio 2005 installed on your machine, you must install the Visual Studio 2005 Redistributables to run ImageTcl and ImageTclAR.  These can be obtained at:  Visual Studio 2005 Redistributables. 

Installation instructions:

1. Unzip ImageTcl and ImageTclAR into suitable directories.  Recommended:  c:\ImageTcl and c:\ImageTclAR. 
2. Ensure you have a suitable version of ActiveTcl installed on your system.  Supported version is 8.4.13.  An installer for ActiveTcl 8.4.13 is included in the ImageTcl\components directory. 
3. Run the install.tcl script in the ImageTcl directory.
4. Run the install.tcl script in the ImageTclAR directory.

ImageTclAR should then be ready to use.  Documentation will have been installed in an ImageTcl folder in the start menu.  We suggest starting with the tutorials.

ImageTcl and ImageTclAR are distrubuted with several precompiled DLL's and executable programs.  Specifically, these are:

• libvrml - VRML object support.
• fiducialdct - The fiducial identification system.
• libtasi - Camera calibration library.
• fiducial - The fiducial generator program.

We are committed to open source development and will provide source for these components on request.

Some of features of ImageTclAR High-performance for real-time applications.  Completely modular design that simplifies development and testing.   Threaded and multiprocessor support. Drivers for Polhemus tracking hardware (ISOTRAK and FASTRAK), InterSense (InertiaCube), vision-based tracking. Camera to workspace calibration.   Tracker to workspace calibration. Head-mounted display calibration. A simple to use programming interface based on Tcl and the Tk Toolkit. Modular design which facilities the easy construction of new components for rapid prototyping. Automatic build tools. Automatic tools for assistance in creation of new data types and commands.

Supported ImageTclAR subsystems:

• body - Support for body-stabilized displays.
• camera - Support for camera input.
• filter - Merging of tracking data from multiple trackers.
• frame - Arbitrary named tracked frames.
• gloves - Support for pinch gloves.
• hmd - Optical see-through head-mounted displays.
• joystick - Joystick inputs for control and navigation.
• monitor - Monitor-based AR and video see-through displays.
• sensor - Support for TNG-3 sensor input devices.
• stylus - Tracked styluses.
• tracker - Motion tracking.

ImageTcl/ImageTclAR Scene Graph System:

• animation - Simple animation support.
• arrow - 3D arrow for pointing.
• axis - 3D coordinate system.
• blend - Transparency support.
• box - 3D box.
• color - Simple color support.
• composite - Composite objects in scene graphs.
• crosshair - 2D Marking
• duplo - Duplo blocks!
• light - Lights in scene space.
• line - 3D lines.
• material - Material properties specification.
• polygon - Polygons
• rotate - Rotation
• scale - Scaling
• target - 3D Marking
• text - Extruded fonts.
• transform - Arbitrary transformations.
• translate - Translation.
• vrml - Loaded VRML 2.0 objects.