Clever interoperability through OpenARML?

With the rise of AR browsers for smartphones and other devices, the need or the advantage of standards rises as well. A nice move was made by Mobilizy, proposing an extension to the KML file format, tagging geo data. You can read their press release here and check out the fresh website for the eventually available and open standard for AR geo tags: www.openarml.org.

The documentation online is only an excerpt of what will come, so there might be answers for my open questions soon. If I missed out on it, please let me know.

• will there be a way to define heights? this might be useful when a higher building has different tag-worthy elements on different floors, etc.
• will there be a way to define orientation for tags? e.g. for placing 3D models (as possible with gamaray and the latest layar tech demo). also 3D-fonts for buildings might sometimes be better off not just facing the user’s point of view, etc.

I believe there is much more to come, but the current proposal seems to be a good start – from what I can tell so far. KML based approach sounds good, since the tags can still be viewed in applications such as Google Earth or Maps, but give additional value for mobile AR user.

Oh, and the picture doesn’t have anything to do with ARML, but is a shot from layar’s 3D demo. I just like PacMan so much and the reference to early AR work, too. ;)

Update: I had a talk with Markus Tripp from Mobilizy and height definition is integrated for sure, everything else… we have to wait and see.