Yet again Disney has used its magic to give life to the imagination. This time they gave life to bland colouring book characters, literally.
A Disney Research team based in Zurich has developed the augmented reality colouring book app which is a technology that traces and captures 2D images from a colouring book and transforms them in real-time to 3D characters that move on the page. The process was detailed in a new paper called "Live Texturing of Augmented Reality Characters from Coloured Drawings". As a child fills in a cartoon character on the page, the app—making use of the camera on a smartphone or tablet—scans the colours and patterns they create to fill in a 3D animated model of that same character within the app.
In this era of smartphones and tablets, colouring books are losing attention. Thus this effort to make the colouring book interesting again, as colouring books are a great way to express a child’s creativity. This will keep kids engaged and hooked. Who doesn’t want to see the elephant they just coloured come alive dancing in front of them? And to prove it the Disney researchers performed user tests on adults, finding that the participants were more inspired to draw and colour, and 80 percent revealed that they felt more connected to the animated characters.
Can’t wait to get your hands on the app? Disney has already launched it on Google Play and iTunes. It’s called, “Disney Color and Play”.
It could be a while till this technology becomes a household thing, though — as unfortunately, this app can’t be used with just any colouring book. It has to be used with Disney Colour and Play colouring books or individual pages that can be printed out at home.