Unlike Forrest Gump and his box of chocolates that are a mystery to him (the content of the box, anyways), Lego thinks that it is a waste of time to play the guessing game – which is why the Danish block building company has decided to work hand in glove in Intel to come up with an augmented reality (AR) application which will let Lego shoppers check out a 3D rendering of a toy whenever they pick up a sealed box and have it remain in front of a video screen.The processing power required to get this job done is supplied by an inexpensive Sandy Bridge PC that has integrated graphics and a small ITX motherboard, where the augmented reality app will rely on your average webcam to detect patterns on the Lego box, going through its archives to come up with an appropriate 3D image match that will look as though it floats on top of the packaging. Watch the video after the jump to get a better idea of how it would look like.
This would give a better visual idea to shoppers who wonder just what they’re going to get inside the box once the “job” is complete, although I would say that in my experience with Lego’s images on the outside, they rarely turn out differently. One thing’s for sure though – this will make Lego far more fun to buy now.
Filed in . Read more about Ar, Augmented Reality (AR) and Lego.