System and method for augmented reality with complex augmented reality video image tags

1. An augmented reality system to enable a user in an augmented reality gaming venue to view complex augmented reality, the system comprising:

a mobile device comprising a camera for capturing video of a gaming machine, wherein the video comprises one more images of a game or a game title;

a network coupled to the mobile device and a server, the network capable of sending the video from the mobile device to the server, the server capable of determining if one or more image tags are viewable in the video;

wherein, when one or more image tags within the video are detected by the server:

the server uses the one or more image tags to access information relating to the gaming machine and transmits virtual graphics over the network to the mobile device; and

the mobile device overlays the virtual graphics in a position on a video display of the mobile device within 3D space to augment a video display of the gaming machine with 3D effects to create complex augmented reality.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the virtual graphics comprise one or more displayed controls by which the user may affect one or more operations of the gaming machine from the mobile device.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the video comprises an image of the video display of the gaming machine, and wherein any moving areas of the video are masked off to provide a remaining static image.

4. The system of claim 1 , further comprising the server using a depth buffer to determine which elements of a 3D rendering are visible to a virtual camera.

5. The system of claim 4 , further comprising the server comparing a z-value of each element with an existing depth buffer z-value at the same screen co-ordinate.

6. The system of claim 4 , further comprising the server rendering the virtual gaming machine cabinet by mapping the image tag co-ordinates to the gaming machine cabinet co-ordinates using vector subtraction.

7. The system of claim 6 , further comprising the server combining the camera image with the rendering of the additional virtual 3D component minus the virtual gaming machine cabinet.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein a CAD model having spatial parameters is associated with an image tag.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the virtual rendering of the gaming machine cabinet is a virtual depth-only rendering of the gaming machine cabinet.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein virtual rendering of the gaming machine cabinet extracts 2D information from the display of the gaming machine to produce a 3D image of the gaming machine.

11. The system of claim 1 further comprising a translation system that extracts a first language from the display of the gaming machine and translates the first language into a second language that is visible to the user in place of the first language.

12. An augmented reality system to enable a user to view complex augmented reality, the system comprising:

a mobile device comprising a camera that allows a user to capture video data comprising one or more images of a first display device;

a network coupled to the mobile device and a server, the network capable of sending the video from the mobile device to the server, the server capable of determining if one or more image tags are within in the video data;

wherein, when one or more image tags within the video data are detected by the server:

the server uses the one or more image tags to access information used by the augmented reality system and transmits virtual graphics over the network to the mobile device; and

the mobile device overlays the virtual graphics in a position on a second display of the mobile device to augment the first display with 3D effects to create complex augmented reality.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein at least one of the first display and the second display comprises an LCD screen.

14. The system of claim 12 , wherein any moving areas of the video data are masked off to provide a remaining static image.

15. The system of claim 12 , wherein the server uses a depth buffer to determine which elements of a 3D rendering are visible to a virtual camera.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the server compares the z-value of each element to an existing depth buffer z-value at the same screen co-ordinate.

17. The system of claim 12 , further comprising a translation system that extracts a first language from the first display and translates the first language into a second language that is visible to the user on the second display in place of the first language.