A couple days ago, I posted on the FLARToolkit and my desire to create a solar system demo using the toolkit.  I have since discovered that my machine will not handle the graphics when using non-wireframe materials.  I would like to give a great big "Thank You" to Lee Brimelow and his Introduction to Augmented Reality video on gotoandlearn().  The original FLARToolkit contains only Japanese comments and can be tricky to read.  Lee Has done a great job of walking through a setup of FLARTookit in FlexBuilder and if you are interested in getting started quickly, it is a MUST SEE.  Lee also walks you through the process of creating your own marker file using the FLAR pattern MakerGenerator AIR application.  Another option is to use the FLAR Marker Generator Online version.

Working in FB3 is more comfortable for me as code-hinting works better in FB3 over Flash CS4.  As a Flex Dev, I spend most of my time in FB3 anyway, so it's just more comforting to do my work in it.

Using PV3D, and the FLARToolkit I created a sphere demo containing a PhongMaterial applied to my sphere and had my sphere perform a simple orbit around a center point.  I also had the sphere perform a rotation around its own y-axis to simulate the rotation of the Earth.  I added a small moon that rotated around my "earth" but I need to make a couple changes to allow it to run with my "high speed" computer.

You can download and try the application on the FlexMafia site.  You will need to print out the marker file, and will need to attach a webcam once you download the project  for this example, I used the marker from the GE Smart Grid demo. (Hope they don't mind.)