In 2002 I was an urban planning graduate student in Chicago at the University of Illinois where I met Alex Hill, a PhD candidate in computer science at the time. I had a vision that in the near future we would be able to project buildings and city plans onto the physical environment and I was determined to learn how. Virtual Reality was the best tool to augmenting an environment at the time. Alex and I collaborated on a manual for urban planning virtual reality that is now outdated but some of the same principles apply to AR. I wrote in the VR manual, “The user within a real time display has free range of movement. The user can walk, fly, or examine any object within the scene by moving closer and walking around it. Preselected viewpoints allow the user to travel easily from one place to another. Within a simulation, the user can manipulate buildings by moving and scaling them…”
AR will allow us to see an alternate view through our phone’s screen of the built environment. We will be able to virtually manipulate buildings such as scaling and moving them, tagging features, and adding street furniture and trees. Our virutal and physical worlds will blend and infinately connect those that have been there to those that are present in the space.
AR tools are becoming increasingly available but it is still a mystery how to use them. My intention is to focus on the use of the Kamra Ar browser to extend the capabilities of a web site into a geospatial intelligence that will enable architects and planners to create more livable and engaging environments.
