This paper describes a software platform oriented to the augmented reality/mixed reality application developer, aiming at simplifying his/her programming tasks. This platform comprises a software development kit (SDK) for the Windows environment, consisting of a set of C++ classes packaged into modules. The platform is known as MX toolkit and utilises extensively the AR toolkit, for all matters regarding marker-based tracking, but is defined at a somewhat higher abstraction level than the AR toolkit software layer, by hiding from the programmer, low level implementation details and facilitating AR/MR object-oriented programming. The MX toolkit is presented by means of a comparison with the AR toolkit processing pipeline and API and by explaining its eight system modules. We expect to provide this package as an aid for AR toolkit-based applications development. The paper also describes a visual AR/MR authoring tool, the Mix It application, from the user interface point of view, as an illustration of the development support potential of the MX toolkit SDK.

ART03, The Second IEEE International Augmented Reality Toolkit Workshop em Tokio, Japão, 6 Outubro 2003

• Computer and Information Sciences - Natural Sciences
• Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering - Engineering and Technology