The augmented reality golf project is large-scale multidisciplinary project that spans multiple colleges and units at RIT. A team of about 40 students, staff, and faculty have built an augmented-reality, golfing computer game that immerses the golfer in the experience. Using a real club, the player hits a real ball that displays as a virtual ball displayed onto augmented reality goggles worn by the player.

The game offers two options:

1. A re-imagined RIT quarter mile as a bright, sunny golf course for adult players.
2. A mini-golf game inspired by the art of Van Gogh for children and adults.

In each option, the game uses custom hardware and software to generate the virtual ball's trajectory based on the player's swing. While the game moves the player to wherever the ball lands in the virtual world, the player can look around at the beautiful scenery in the goggles, which track the player's movements in all directions.

For the upcoming 2011 ImagineRIT festival, AR Golf features a robot for the main course (please forgive the pun)! Upon reaching the virtual golf green, a robot outside in the real world communicating with the game activates. It travels to the corresponding real-world position on a real world golf green near the Field House and deposits the ball. Project staff will transport each player on an actual golf cart to the green to putt the ball, which the player may take as a commemorative prize.

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The Augmented Reality Golf project at RIT seeks to create an on-going multidisciplinary educational experience in which the entire RIT community can collaborate to build an innovative and immersive golf experience.

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The Augmented Reality Golf (ARGolf) project began in the spring of 2009 when Ryan Crittenden from RIT's Facilities Management Services approached the Department of Interactive Games and Media (IGM) about creating an innovative golf game. With the combination IGM's game design and development know-how and FMS's wealth of hands-on, talented problem solvers could produce an exciting showcase piece for ImagineRIT. IGM recommend David I. Schwartz (who had recently run a successful seminar on design alternative game interfaces). Crittenden and Schwartz quickly realized a common vision of exploring ways to engage the entire RIT community and outside industry through innovation in game design.

The project initially drew the interest of several students, some of which have continued to this day (see our list of Developers) along with IGM professor Jessica Bayliss and many FMS staff members under the supervision of Cathy Ahern. As the project has evolved, the student, staff, and faculty membership has changed. Initially targetted as a graduate project in IGM, the team quickly realized that the undergraduates showed greater interest, which led to the development of the large-scale indendent study.

The AR Golf project has undergone several iterations since its inception in 2009. The first version of the game involved developing these core aspects:

• A system to read approximate velocity and direction of a real golf ball that a player hits with a real golf club.
• An augmented-reality display to show the in-game world to the player.
• Initial 3-D art assets that model many RIT buildings that would border the "RIT fairway."
• A real golf green and a mechanism to place a player's golf ball in the corresponding position from the virtual green.
• A game engine to display the game to the player and control input/output devices.

Throughout the 2009-2010 academic year, FMS provided resources and space with which the student team developed the prototype. Through a series of experiments, the team pulled together the entire project, yielding an excellent showing at ImagineRIT (2010) and winning a First-Place Sponsors Award.

As of 2010-2011, the test set its sights on improving all aspects of the project. The project entails several teams working on obtaining ball data, output to the player, processing of the game, art and animation, and a golf-placing robot:

• The "input team" (KGCOE, CAST, FMS, GCCIS) will demonstrate the variety of means to track ball position and velocity, including ways to capture and return the real ball after each swing (including safety nets!).
• The "engine team" (GCCIS, CIAS) will demonstrate their custom game software that takes input, controls the game, calculates virtual ball physics, and sends output to the goggles and robot. The team will also demonstrate the various underlying computational tools built to assist with world creation.
• The "goggles team" (GCCIS) will demonstrate how the game can display a 3-D virtual world to the player who can freely look in all directions.
• The "art team" developed a wealth of beautiful models of RIT and the surrounding environment, including the Van Gogh inspired mini-golf game, which will be displayed (including "flythroughs" of the virtual environments).
• The "robot team" (KGCOE) will demonstrate a custom-built, golf-placing, child-friendly robot that communicates with the main-course golf game via wifi. The team will demonstrate their progress as a result of a Senior Capstone experience in which the team developed the robot from paper to product.
• "Team FMS!" FMS will demonstrate how it built a real golf green, developed ball-catching mechanisms inside the field house, safety nets, and a variety of other mechanical parts made to innovate and facilitate the whole project. They will demonstrate how their input greatly contributes to the innovation mission at RIT.

We look forward to continuing to innovate the concepts, especially as augmented reality technology continues to improve.

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