Augmented reality has become all the rage for summer movies this year, and now Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has joined the fray for its home release. Star Trek and District 9 both included so-called “augmented reality” activities as part of their marketing campaign for the films’ theatrical release. Augmented reality works through a webcam that will first recognize familiar 2-dimensional images. Once it has identified a ‘marker’, it uses this as a basis upon which to project 3-dimensional objects, animations and interactive content. Star Trek used this to provide a 3D image of the new Enterprise spaceship, and District 9 used it as part of it’s viral campaign.


With webcams becoming more and more common, I’m sure you’ll be seeing this tech a lot more. Transformers 2 is now using it to promote today’s release of the Two-Disc Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray. The thing Paramount does differently for this film (other than the fact you have to buy something in order to do the activity) is that they make it look fun. This time you use the actual DVD or Blu-Ray packaging as the marker, and you can play games and such. Here’s an overly intense video that demonstrates a bit of the features.