Markerless augmented reality applications

Augmented Reality (AR) is the process of adding virtual computer generated information on view of a physical real-world environment in real-time. AR, which allows adding 3-dimensional models, animations, videos and various virtual materials which are generated in computer environment to be positioned on desired targets in the real world, allows for enabling and enriching the real world more functional and beneficial. In this thesis explains how AR technologies work, expresses and explains fields of application and gives a summary from history to present time and also presents a real-life demonstration of Mobile device-based AR. Thesis presents contributions for design and development of a fully working Markerless Augmented Reality Application that works on Android Mobile devices. For this purpose, were studied on several computer vision techniques such feature extraction-detection, SURF (Speeded Up Robust Features), Markerless tracking (Natural feature tracking) by using OpenCV Computer Vision library. As well as, were done 3D modelling, texturing, shading etc. by using OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) and also creating Wavefront OBJ 3D model files via Blender 3D. Finally in this thesis, several applications are presented that make use of these methods which is mentioned above. Firstly camera calibration, pose tracking and marker based augmented reality applications were worked for understanding augmented reality idea, then a markerless augmented reality application were developed on android mobile device by using Vuforia SDK for target tracking part of algorithm. Keywords: Augmented Reality, Computer Vision, Mobile Devices, Android Software Interface, SURF