Hi. Presenting to you...Card Vision.


A card magic revelation prop app for magicians and illusionist. Create the illusion of "seeing" through a card, deck or box to reveal the spectator's card.

- 3D graphics
- Choose from 10 card back/box colors to suit your deck
- Set the table color
- Quarter rotatable box
- Single card, deck, box and open lid modes
- Configurable camera and see though
- Written message
- Preset or 2 button selection from warm boot

Video demo:
http://www.matchygames.com/cardvision.html

iTunes:
itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/card-vision/id368375195?mt=8


Cheers,
-Joe

Does this app use the actual camera, or is it a matter of learning to time moves to a video.

- No camera required.
- Runs on iPod Touch and iPhones. Possible iPad version soon.
- Real-time movements based on internal device sensors (accelerometers)
- No recorded video or sequence animation required to learn.
- Any one can perform with this and very easy to use with strong reactions.

I don't understand. You say it is not a video that you time your actions to, but also that it does not use the camera. If it doesn't use the camera then it must be a video, like the drinking beer app etc, am I missing something. You also state it has a configurable camera. Something doesn't make sense.

I'm working on a full review of this app, but in the meantime, allow me to answer your questions.

The app does not use an actual camera. Rather, it creates a 3D model of a bicycle card box (or a deck of cards, or even a single playing card) that is displayed on the screen of your iPhone/iPod Touch. It then uses the accelerometer to adjust the angle of display according to the position of the iPhone/iPT. The effect is fairly smooth.

The configuration refers to the "virtual" camera, as you can adjust it's starting position as you begin the effect.

Card Vision XL! (for iPad) is now available:

itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/card-vision-xl/id386527919?mt=8

Card Vision
Effect: You force a card and return it to the deck. Let’s say for this performance the card is upside down in the deck as well. You put all the cards back into the box and then onto the table. You then take out your phone and open the camera app. You point the camera at the card box and look at the box of cards through the camera. You can move around as much as you want, and the box on the camera moves with you, (so convincing the spectator that the image they see on the phone is the actual box in front of them).
As you move the phone closer to the card box, it turns into a mini-x-ray machine and a picture of the card in x-ray form appears in the phone, as though it were x-raying through the cards. You can now announce which card they choose.
You then take the cards out of the box and spread them to show their card upside down in the pack.

I have not bought this app, but did the research and feel I can add my thoughts. No camera is needed for this effect; it all exists within the app. The image of the card box is clean – perhaps too clean. I know of no-one that can hold a camera that smoothly and it looks odd. Further more, the camera position on the phone is in the top left corner, but when the camera was placed perfectly over the pack, it was dead centre. This immediately cried out to me as being wrong. Okay, not everyone will notice this, or care about it. But I did notice it and so I have to presume others will as well.
You have ten different colour box designs – which personally I think is overkill. Red and Blue would happily suffice. However a new problem now exists in the fact that all bicycle cards made this year have the ten of hearts in the corner. A new back design needs to be included to work with this new card box. You also have ‘seconds’ cards which is missing. You can perform the effect without the card box which is probably the way to answer this problem. But then it makes all those options useless.
Speaking of options, you can change the opacity of the card deck, the colour of the table you are on and the size of the card box in relation to the phone. Sometimes too many options is bad. I can’t be preparing my phone each time for the room, cards, lights and table that I’m working on. I don’t have 5 minutes available setting this effect up for each time I want to perform it.
It’s also a trick that the spectator has to see the phone at the same time you do. If they are stood right next to you, then okay. But you can’t go perform this in the real world for more than one person which is not really my style. I often get whole groups of people wondering over to see an effect.
At the end of the day, this is yet another card revelation. We are not exactly short of those. Further more, there are card revelations that are more visible, don’t require forces and can be done instantly without any set-up or lighting restrictions.
My Rating: 70%

I don’t want to be too critical to the creator of this effect as he asked me to review it, so I am going to offer some suggestions on how to improve it.

1. Add the new card back designs for the new bics.
2. The app world is overflowing with card revelations. Maybe do something a bit different with your app. Why not do an x-ray of a persons hand. Have them choose one of five objects and then x-ray their hand to see what object they choose.
3. Using that same principle, you could do a variation of ‘which hand is it in’. I’ve reviewed a trick with a compass, where you place a coin near the phone and it points to it. That trick is awful. But why not take that same principle, ask them to hide the coin in a hand and place both hands in a fist in front of you. You then use your x-ray machine to look into their hand. What you’re actually doing is combing your trick with the compass trick to locate the coin and reveal it is a spectacular way. The great features about this is that most fists all look the same. The background will be the floor will can be black as that’s standard for the look of an x-ray machine. But even if you go the full photo route, it’s still a long way down and so can be blurred / out of focus.
4. Multiple object location. Five coloured balls, each ball put into a different pocket and you use your scanner on them to locate each ball.

There are better uses for your app that go far beyond playing cards and actually help make the effect stronger, better, more street style and avoids playing cards. My advice, is tweak it a little and you will have a top-selling effect on your hands.

Ku7uk3, Thank-you kindly for your indepth review and suggestions.