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Augmented Reality applications need a Web Service Back-End. Here is a 90-Day No obligation, totally free offer to use Windows Azure as your web service for Windows 8 Clients. You get: Compute / 750 small compute hours per month, Web sites / 10 web sites, Mobile services / 10 mobile services, Relational database / 1 SQL database, SQL reporting / 100 hours per month, Storage / 35GB with 50,000,000 storage transactions, Bandwidth / unlimited inbound & 25GB outbound, CDN / 20GB outbound with 500,000 transactions, Cache / 128MB, Service bus / 1,500 relay hours and 500,000 messages http://www.microsoft.com/click/services
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Step 0: What we will build. Augmented Reality, Windows 8, and Cloud Computing–How to implement with real code High level introduction to our finished application. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brunoterkaly/archive/2012
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Step 1–Augmented Reality, Windows 8, and Cloud Computing–How to implement with real code Introduction. What is Augmented Reality http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brunoterkaly/archive/2012/10/29/
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how-to-implement-with-real-code.aspx#
Step 2–Augmented Reality, Windows 8, and Cloud Computing–How to implement with real code Building the first part of our Azure back-end. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brunoterkaly/archive/2012/10/30/
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Step 3–Augmented Reality, Windows 8, and Cloud Computing–How to implement with real code (Implementing the Cloud Back-End) This post provides all source code and explanation for the Azure back-end. This is the back-end for the augmented reality Windows 8 Client. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brunoterkaly/archive/2012/11/05
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Step 4–Augmented Reality, Windows 8, and Cloud Computing–How to implement with real code ... This post provides all source code and explanation for the Windows 8 Client (Augmented Reality Demo). The augmented reality Windows 8 Client calls into the Azure back-end described in step 3 above. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brunoterkaly/archive/2012/11/06/
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Source Code - Web Service Back End This is the Windows Azure Project that Windows 8 Clients call into http://sdrv.ms/Qoqb1J
Source Code - Windows 8 Client This is the Augmented Reality Windows 8 Client http://sdrv.ms/T38uBC
This is the finished augmented reality client. I have completed the code. Now it is time to blog about it and share the code with everyone.
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  1. This is augmented reality in action. It is a Windows 8 client talking to a cloud-based back-end, which returns mashed data to the client based on GPS coordinates.
  2. Notice that it has augmented reality data overlaid on top of a live photo
  3. It also has a satellite image overlaid on top of the live photo
  4. This augmented reality data originates from a custom cloud application that we will write
    1. The Windows 8 client will make one call to our custom cloud application to get the temperature, elevation, and location information
    2. The mash-up of data is done at the server (our Azure/Cloud app)
  5. You can use the GPS simulator to change locations
    • My system doesn't have a GPS device and yours probably does not either
  6. The information displayed is a mash-up of the Google Maps and information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  7. I will provide all source code.
This is a Windows Azure Back-end
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  1. It is hosted in a Microsoft Data Center
  2. The code above is running locally (in an emulator)
    1. The beauty of Azure is that I can run locally to test my application before deploying to a data center
  3. This running application can be scaled to meet any demand by Windows 8 clients
  4. The style of Azure application is (MVC Web API), described in future posts. Step 2 of these posts describes how to start building the cloud application.
The application architecture
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  1. We will build a Windows 8 Client in a future post
    • That is where the augmented reality is actually taking place
  2. Our front end web services tier supports our Windows 8 Client
    • We will deploy this tier to a Microsoft Data Center
  3. The Application Services Tier will be Google Maps and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency (NOAA)
    • This could just as easily be Bing Maps
    • In fact, there are many, many options here http://www.programmableweb.com/
  4. This could be architected for even greater scale.
    • You could leverage message queues and background processes (worker roles)
  5. It does currently leverage threading for parallel look ups of data mashups
    • This means I call Google Maps and NOAA at the same time using .NET Tasks
  6. The next step is to finish building the cloud server.
  7. From there I will show the code behind the Windows 8 client
Next stop on the Augmented Reality Tour
All the source code for the cloud application. From there we will present all the source code for the Windows 8 Client.