The cards, called Topps 3-D Live, are built with technology created by augmented reality company . All you have to do is download an ActiveX control from the Web site. Once it's installed, you simply click on the appropriate player, hold your card up to any Webcam, and the player will appear to pop up in 3-D on your monitor's image.
"It's not a hologram that's projected on the card itself," explains Greg Davis, Total Immersion's general manager. "What you see is the digital overlay on the video stream itself, in real-time."
The card becomes fully interactive, too: Spin it around, and the player spins; tilt it, and the player in your monitor tilts, too. You can even use your keyboard to have him pitch, catch, or hit balls -- and it all happens instantaneously as you send the commands.
"You have to think of your Webcam as a mouse or any other input device," says Jason Smith, senior project manager with Total Immersion.
Rethinking Baseball Cards
The 3-D appeal couldn't come at a more crucial crossroad: With the wealth of baseball stats now available online, the sports trading card industry has fallen from bringing in US$1 billion a year to now generating about $200 million in annual revenue, according to data obtained by . The founder of Topps' parent company, Michael Eisner (yes, ) says he sees the 3-D Live cards as being a step toward "transform[ing] Topps into a sports media company."
The Topps 3-D Live cards feature 32 different Major League Baseball players and are available in all packs of Topps 2009 Baseball Series 1 cards, as well as within Topps' Attax baseball card game.
3-D in the Real World
As for Total Immersion, Davis says the company has a big year ahead, with more traditional consumer companies set to unveil new three-dimensional sides to their products this coming summer. There's a good chance you've seen some of before, too -- you may just not have realized it.
Remember Disneyland's interactive that launched at the Anaheim, Calif. theme park last year? It was largely billed as being a Microsoft and HP creation. Total Immersion, though, supplied one of the most-discussed pieces of "magical" technology: a virtual dressing room that lets guests see altered versions of themselves on a special mirror.
"There's face recognition, but there's also recognition based on what the guest wears on their shirt -- so they can virtually try on hairstyles, accessories, and princess dresses in front of what we call the 'magic mirror,' " Davis says.
Topps, no doubt, is hoping that same magic will reach its 3-D experiment -- and, you might say, knock one right out of the park.