AR stands for 'Augmented Reality'

The AR SIGHTS:

I first saw the idea of 'augmented reality' some 4 years ago, when working at the Royal Geographical Society, and there was a presentation by the Ordnance Survey, who showed the technique in action with some headsets and hand held devices.

Just been having a play with the AR SIGHTS website: a 'Twitter' tip-off....

The idea is that you install an application which connects with Google Earth. Located around the world are some iconic buildings such as the Eiffel Tower, Pyramids of Giza and Sydney Opera House. Once installed, a sheet with a special image is downloaded and printed off. This is then placed in front of a web-cam, and instead of the image, a 3D model of the building appears to 'sit' on the sheet of paper, and can be rotated and looked at from various angles.

Thanks to Ollie Bray for the useful demo video on BLIP TV which shows it in action...