Inspiration: CacheTown

For the vivid project, the aim is to create a sort of 'discovery' augmented reality program to be viewed and explored by vivid patrons. The example done by Cachetown is the idea for what our team hopes to accomplish.

Cachetown

http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/02/cachetown-wants-to-bring-mobile-advertising-to-the-third-dimension-with-gamification-augmented-reality/
Check out their video for details of our inspiration.

Video accessed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHD6Z2eDZ-E 28th/03/2016 time: 5:08pm

Video accessed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9rf9GmYpM 29th/03/2016 time 2:30pm

Technology List: Complete list of software platforms used during the project

A Technology review was necessary to determine what program would be appropriate for the project. The criteria's include a SDK budget between $400-$1000, allow users to view augmented animations/videos via their Android or iOS based smartphones, and be Geo-location based(not symbol stimulated). The program should also be user friendly and allow for development and changes to SDK scripting.

Unity - game engine
Unity provides a range of services to help developers make games and engage, retain and monetize users within a free development platform.
Download

https://unity3d.com/get-unity/download?ref=personal
Gelocation formatting
 https://northrush.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/access-gps-data-on-unity-3d/
Understanding Components
http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/unity-thinking-with-components--gamedev-12492
Augmented Reality Plugin

Wikitude AR location-based cross-platform plugin for Unity
While the wikitude standalone platform for location-based augmented reality an expensive piece of software, they do have a free cross-platform plugin for unity for the augmented reality.
A further blog will appear outlining its installation and implmentation. For now, just read about the product here: http://www.wikitude.com/

App development: Android studio / cross platform: 
http://www.wikitude.com/developer/documentation/unity#_48_INSTANCE_Zk7M2pQVPDDi_=setupguideunity.html

Introduction to Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) is about overlaying pieces of a virtual world over the real world (in contrast to Virtual Reality (VR) that is about replacing the real world with a virtual one). On mobile devices, this simply means enhancing what you can see through the device’s camera with multimedia content (e.g. you can point your camera at a movie poster and watch its trailer, or you can point it at a star in the sky and learn its name).

Image: www.arlab.com accessed 24/03/2016 11:27am

This blog will follow the experimentation of a series of augmented reality programs to create and generate a display a animation/co-choreographed video within the Plotemi VIVID 2016
Time frame 2 months. To be completed by the end of May, tested and accessibly by the public via an app download.
I will trouble shoot with a number of augmented reality programs, compare their applicability and how they capability, the efficiency for cost and user-friendliness.
The main focus will be for the Augmented reality to perform Geolocation. This is taking in a longitude and latitude values as stimulus for the projection, rather than a conventional 'tag' method for displaying imagery.

Check out this video for a great explanation about Augmented Reality if your having further trouble grasping the concepts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddyUp26qvhw

Abbreviations definitions

Geo Caching: Grabbing the coordinates of a particular place which is unique worldwide and using that location as a proximity meter for projecting Augmented Reality.

POIs: A point of interest,is a specific point location that someone may find useful or interesting.

AR: Augmented Reality, adding virtual projections to an existing world view. 

GL: Geolocation, google maps location based and geolocation are used interchangeably. 

LB: Location Based.

API: API is an interface that allows software programs to interact with each other

SDK: is a set of tools that can be used to develop software applications targeting a specific platform. They often hold a number of API's but not all API's have SDK's.

These terms are used interchnagably throughout this blog.