Augmented reality could help with ordering your Ferrari’s wheels

A German researcher from RTT wowed the audience at Nvidia’s GPU Technology conference by staging a visual illusion. In a demonstration of “augmented reality,” the researchers showed how they could point a video camera at a car wheel and then show that wheel in a video.

In the video, the wheel can be enhanced with computer graphics. You could, for instance, show in the video what different types of car wheels would look like on your Ferrari. The experiment is enabled by using powerful graphics chips that can process the data for the visuals in real time. The at right shows the real tire being filmed, while the image below depicts what shows up on the video screen with the augmented graphics.
And the image at bottom is a picture of an accurately rendered Ferrari sports car. You will see this kind of simulation of real cars available in Ferrari dealerships in the future. One such simulator is already available for shoppers at a dealership in Germany. Nvidia demoed the technology at its GPU Technology conference today in San Jose, Calif.