LM3LABS initiated a collaboration with Jean-Michel Othoniel, one of France’s most prominent contemporary artist.

The first collaboration started with Augmented Reality at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.
An “AR room” lets people, mostly kids, discover 12 major works from the artist which would be difficult to bring in the location.
Kids can discover, handle, turn and examine each work in details.
This room is complemented by a side workshop for kids where they can draw and color models they have discovered with AR.

The exhibition which is curated by Tokyo-based La Boite and sponsored by French apparel brand Bonpoint will last until March 11th, 2012 and will be followed by the same exhibition in Macao and New York. Bonpoint’s shops will be equipped with the Mac version of the AR application (the museum version runs on Linux).

The 3-month exhibition was inaugurated on January 6th by Imperial Princess Takamado and France’s ambassador, Mr Christian Masset.

If you are in Tokyo, you can get more information about the exhibition on Tokyo Art Beat web site.

If you can read Japanese, please check this blog selection:

http://bit.ly/xXbjXb

http://www.fashionsnap.com/news/2012-01-03/jeanmichel-bonpoint/

http://www.art-it.asia/u/HaraMuseum/nxa75MDdtPX3oSHGkRlw/

http://chibahidetoshi.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-post.html

http://yaplog.jp/shigemi-mukuno/archive/157

LM3LABS’ team wishes you a Happy New Year !

At LM3LABS we strongly believe that 2012 will be the year of the interactive 3D, so as a greeting card we would like to explore our imagination world with you. Will you find our greetings messages in this world? (a hint, “move away from town! Take distance and watch back”)

In 2012, we wish we all will live FULLSCREEN ! So please, play this greeting card fullscreen too. RIGHT-CLICK, and “Go Fullscreen”.

Navigate in this imagination world with your mouse and keyboard arrow keys. You can use mouse + keys together.

Of course, you might have to download the Unity plug-in, no worry it is safe and we think it will be a great investment for 2012. Click on LM3LABS logo to install it.

Happy exploration, Happy 2012 !

For its bicentenary celebration, Perrier-Jouet, the famous French champagne brand, tapped LM3LABS for two interactive and touchless books similar to what was done for Dior in Singapore.

The books used AirStrike to track hands and gestures in mid-air and let users turn pages or click on elements on pages.

The books presented Perrier-Jouet history since 1811, the Emile Galle period and its 2011 legacy with so talented artist Daniel Ashram.

LM3LABS’ team is excited to unveil LM3LABS Private Limited in Singapore.

Business-friendly and innovation-hungry Singapore, like surrounding countries, have been a key market to LM3LABS since 2006. The City-State is a central cross-road in Asia and Middle-East.

LM3LABS Singapore has three core missions:

1- LM3LABS Pte Ltd will support the growing demand in interactive products in Singapore but also in fast growing countries namely India, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia and China.
2- This expansion will also contribute to LM3LABS visionary R&D programme for 2012 in liaise with the French office.
3- LM3LABS Pte Ltd’s third mission is to better support local partners with expertise in interaction design, technology integration and product installation.

A fully-furnished showroom will open early 2012.

Belinda Ng has been appointed as Business Development Manager and will manage the growth of the regional market.
She brings in unique experience of LM3LABS’ products and experienced business acumen.
Please get in touch with her !

Shiok Lah !

LM3LABS is featured in EURObiZ, a magazine from the EU Chamber of Commerce in Japan.

It tells LM3LABS’ story in Japan.

Holography is a visual trick which lets viewer think they are in front of a 3D object in front of them.
Questioning the reality of holograms is questioning the reality of life “a la” matrix. A philosophical debate.

Different holographic solutions where presented and explained at a Tokyo Interaction Center event.

Whatever technology is used to create holographic images, non interactive images or animations are extremely boring and rarely engaging.

Interacting with light is a tricky issue as there is nothing to touch and placing devices like a mouse or a trackpad “killes” the effect.

Finally the best is to interact is tracking finger pointing at the hologram.

AirStrike is the perfect tool for achieving this goal.

Here is a simulation showing the association between a “dreamoc” holographic system (but there are other manufacturers, and we would be happy to collaborate with them) and AirStrike. A real object is on display. Holographic contents appear around the object and propose menu to the viewer who “clicks” it. The content can be stereoscopique adding more to the 3D effect.

Applications are numerous in retail and museums.

Here is an example designed for a luxury watch maker. The visitor points at a real watch on display in the glass case. Holographic contents appears around the selected watch.

Holography can be larger scale.

In the below example, a system similar to “Vizoo” is used to create the holographic effect which separates the viewer from the artifact.

AirStrike lets the visitor get augmented information according to where he points toward the artifact’s details.

In the continuation of the 3DFeel avatar series, LM3LABS had the opportunity to present the “Samurai avatar”, a realtime 3D masterpiece, at Futur-en-Seine in Paris.

LM3LABS was invited as part of the Cool Japan initiative. Our focus was to associate technologies to Japanese traditions.

In action at Futur-en-Seine:

Some details of the work:

3DFeel is starting its collection of avatars with the Hikari Avatar which can be integrated into 3D scenes like games, edutainment, etc…

Panasonic started a European roadshow series to promote their 3D sensor in association with LM3LABS’ 3DFeel full body tracking middleware.

The second application delivered to Panasonic is a Flight Race game where users use hands, gestures and body to pilote their plane into scoring rings.

The game targets digital signage professionals as it dynamically embed in-game advertising.

It is 100% built for Panasonic sensor and can be customized to various sponsors.

Dear Clients, Partners, and Friends,

A week ago, on Friday 11.3 at 2:46PM a terrible tremor was shaking LM3LABS Tokyo offices.
It was a terribly frightening experience for us but we did not know what was happening hundreds of kilometers North.

The earthquake, rated 9 on Richter Scale, was the strongest in Japanese history. It was followed by the strongest tsunami of the millenary which destroyed 100s of villages on the Tohoku shores.
This tsunami triggered industrial incidents in Tokyo suburbs and at Fukushima nuclear plant, hundreds kilometers North of Tokyo.

As we progressively discovered the scale of the catastrophe, we immediately decided to secure our staff and we asked them to take some “vacation” for a week, to leave the risk region with their families.
This was a precaution action but also a contribution.
Indeed our activities are highly relying on electric power and are not critical in such dramatic situations.
We thought we had to make our footprint “lighter” on the region.

As we write now, all staff are safe and secure and LM3LABS operations, uninterrupted since last Friday, will turn back to normal very soon.

Now, it is not the case for the North of Japan with hundreds of people who have lost everything in the tragedy and who are still missing everything: petrol for their heater, gas to evacuate danger zones, food, medics, telephone lines. As we watch those suffering people on TV, we would like to help and move North to relief but we can contribute more effectively by supporting skilled specialists who are there.

I want you to understand the situation in North Japan and to contribute as you can with a donation to the Red Cross Society who is on the field.

You can make donations thru your local Red Cross representation that you can easily find with Google.

Please contribute.