Rapid prototyping in Stanford’s Main Quad
Today I can say I really kicked off my Knight Fellowship project at Stanford.
To do so I am partnering with Gene Becker, founder of the Ubimedia meetup and Augmented Reality (AR) expert.
Our idea is to combine storytelling with AR by using old pictures of Palo Alto and/or Stanford thanks to the kind help of Palo Alto Historical Association.
So what we did today was to start “playing” with Hoopala, a simple AR CMS (Content Management System) and Layar, an AR browser.
Stanford's Main Quad today and in 1905 (Picture by Gene Becker)
Our first test was to do a simple augment in Stanford University’s Main Quad where we positioned a 1905 picture showing a big arch that is no longer on campus (maybe because of 1906 earthquake).
Our first challenge now is to find the good combination between a compelling story and an immersive user experience.
What we are realizing is that the geographical area we want to tell the story of should not be too big otherwise the user won’t be able to immerse him/herself into it.
That is why augmenting the Main Quad can be of a great interest from the user experience point of view. But we also have to find a good story to tell (not too touristic) that fit with that defined geographical area.
We are looking forward to exchanging ideas on it. We’ve just started! So if you are intrigued by this “AR + storytelling = geornalism” idea, just let us know!
UPDATE: See additional amazing screenshots on Gene Becker‘s blog.
Also, thanks to Layar’s Maarten Lens-FitzGerald for the mention in GigaOM’s article on their fantastic fundraising operation.
Fabulous! Good point about the geography; there’s so much rich experience in PA. Great project and I’m looking forward to how it develops. -Dee
[...] post about our first playtesting session, Rapid prototyping in Stanford’s Main Quad, included this [...]
[...] because it was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906, ” Lens-FitzGerald explained. Indeed, the ability to view long-gone points of interest in tandem with the physical world of today is powerful and opens up a world of possibilities. There will be plenty of hardware to experience [...]
[...] because it was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906, ” Lens-FitzGerald explained. Indeed, the ability to view long-gone points of interest in tandem with the physical world of today is powerful and opens up a world of possibilities. There will be plenty of hardware to experience [...]
[...] My project at Stanford [...]
[...] working on how to combine journalism and augmented reality. Quadmented is a test project I have designed with Gene Becker, Ubistudio creator and Layar US employee #1. Thanks a million to [...]
[...] reality have a lot in common because both of them are there to unveil what is hidden. And show Quadmented, the prototype we realized with Gene Becker to offer a time-machine experience through Stanford University’s [...]