AR 4 Architecture

They say you never stop learning and it’s true both personally and professionally. I’m about to embark on the creation of my first AR application; something that only exists virtually but is experienced in the physical world. A very different concept (not to mention different from traditional 2D design). It will require the ability to think in 3D and the elements of time (4D), interactivity, and meaning to be carefully considered.

The intention is to visualize the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons building currently under construction at Georgia Tech. The first thing required is a cube panoramic image of the existing site. Sacha Griffin, SeeIt360, volunteered to take the shots. Longitude and latitude coordinates (which I will need later) were recorded. A rendering of the building  from the same camera position has been provided by Matthew Swarts from the Imagine Lab.

I will be creating this application to be viewed in the KAMRA browser (which will be publicly released at the end of June) for the iPhone.

Here’s what I know so far after a lengthy discussion with Alex Hill, the lead developer of the browser. I will be using a combination of KML and HTML (such as Javascript and CSS) to display the building rendering in position so that when you stand on the physical site, you can see the rendering through the browser on the iPhone. KML in the Kamra browser is utilized in a slightly different way than traditionally (like in Google Earth) such as:

• Photo overlays are used to support the 6 faces of the panoramic image which is needed to ensure everything lines up appropriately.
• HTML goes inside the description tag in the KML to create interactivity.
• Screen Overlay description tags are where I will program an interactive menu.
• Native Screen Overlay characteristcs are also supported.
• The location of elements can be relative to the position of the building rendering (which will be an image in the CSS div tag)
• Elements are measured in degrees (lat and long of the physical world) so that I’m placing augmented content in the physcial space with real world coordinates.
• 3D models are  not yet supported.