Coloring outside the lines is one thing. Coloring in 3D is another.
Disney Research has developed an augmented reality coloring book app, Disney Color and Play, that lets you color and watch characters on the page come to life. You don't have to replace a crayon with a stylus; the app uses a digital overlay that "enhances engagement," according to the company.
Unfortunately, you can't use this app with just any coloring book, though. You have to use it with Disney Color and Play coloring books or individual pages you can print out at home.
While coloring in a picture, hold your smartphone or tablet — with the app open — over the drawing. (If you're a pro at coloring with one hand, you won't have a problem with this; otherwise, ask someone else to hold the device above you.) The page and an animated 3D version of the character will get filled with color in real-time on the device's screen.
Researchers created animated 3D virtual characters and used custom software to generate 2D line-art representations of the characters for a coloring book. The app uses the device's camera to detect the character on the page and display the 3D version.
Some parts of the 3D character obviously can't be seen on the page, such as the back of the head. A "lookup map" matches pixels in the hidden parts of the drawing to the pixels in the parts visible to the illustrator; this makes it look like you're coloring the hidden parts in real-time, too.
VIDEO: YOUTUBE, DISNEYRESEARCHHUB
Since a coloring book page can move and bend, the app can also detect those changes, meaning the virtual character character stays oriented with the surface of the page. So if you start to turn a page, the character will move up with the page, too.
This isn't the first time companies have used augmented reality to enhance traditional coloring books. There's Quiver, previously known as ColAR, Crayola Color Alive and Paint My Cat.
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