Augmented reality usage for prototyping speed up

The integral part of production process in many companies is prototyping. Although, these companies commonly have high quality visualization tools (large screen projections, virtual reality), prototyping was never abandoned. There is a number of reasons. The most important is the possibility of model observation from any angle without any physical constraints and its haptic feedback. The interactivity of model adjustments is important as well. The direct work with the model allows the designers to focus on the creative process more than work with a computer. There is still a problem with a difficult adjustability of the model. More significant changes demand completely new prototype or at least longer time for its realization.The first part of the article describes our approach for solution of this problem by means of Augmented Reality. The merging of the real world model and digital objects allows streamline the work with the model and speed up the whole production phase significantly. The main advantage of augmented reality is the possibility of direct manipulation with the scene using a portable digital camera. Also adding digital objects into the scene could be done using identification markers placed on the surface of the model. Therefore it is not necessary to work with special input devices and lose the contact with the real world model. Adjustments are done directly on the model. The key problem of outlined solution is the ability of identification of an object within the camera picture and its replacement with the digital object. The second part of the article is focused especially on the identification of exact position and orientation of the marker within the picture. The identification marker is generalized into the triple of points which represents a general plane in space. There is discussed the space identification of these points and the description of representation of their position and orientation be means of transformation matrix. This matrix is used for rendering of the graphical objects (e. g. in OpenGL and Direct3D).