Visit Bluhalo; Augmented Reality Style!

For my own interest, a little while ago I began creating a simple internal Augmented Reality (AR) app, (this development wound up being the inspiration for my blog entry about Augmented Reality a couple of weeks ago). We often invite potential clients down to meet us and see where we work. With this in mind, it seemed appropriate to me to use a plan of the office and to pop it up on the blog.

While the ‘final product’ is very rough (tinkering during lunch breaks isn’t really conducive to terrific results!), it is a reasonable proof of concept and has left me in a substantially better position to approach this kind of work for client projects. More importantly, it means I have to write a lot less to supply a blog entry :-)

It goes without saying that you need a webcam for this to work (a reasonable quality one will give more reliable results too), and you will need flash installed as well. As with most AR apps doing the rounds online at the moment, you need to print out the pattern (http://www.bluhalo.com/swf/Data/marker.pdf) and show it to your webcam.

You will need to keep it flat, and if possible out of harsh light sources or the recognition suffers. Other than that, be aware that it might be slow to download on poorer connections and that performance of this rough version is very dependant on your computer.

So, welcome to Bluhalo's office! (If you don't have a web cam, you can get a sneak preview below!)

Here's a screen shot of the AR app in action...

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

The Escape...

The first anniversary of our escape from the barns, for which we still have fond memories of course, is fast approaching. One year ago yesterday, 17th July, work began on our offices in The Hub to create the tranquil, stylish offices that we enjoy today. You can see the first photos from the office development on our blog.

The office looks remarkably similar today to when we moved in, but for those of you that are interested in how and where we work, here are some of the latest shots from the office:

Back to the office for a moment...

So this blog started many months ago when our office move was in full swing to keep everyone updated on the latest developments in our new office. You've seen the empty shell, the cabling going in, the walls going in, the glass going in, the people going in!

Well, now the initial excitement is over, we've been in a while now and we still love it!! Our offices have been likened to those of Skype and Google, which can be seen as nothing but a compliment, and thanks to our office fitout team who designed and built our interior - Grey Interiors - we have some final images of the office looking its best!

If you haven't seen the new office in person yet and fancy coming down for a look, just give us a shout on 01252 70 11 11.




Reception area with Bluhalo-designed wallpaper




One of our cactus friends...




Looking across the starfish to the White Room




The White Room window




The kitchen area