Saw this post on Advergirl and wanted to share. I can envision some pretty amazing things we could do in the library world with this overlay app:
- Same thing being done in London, but in downtown Rochester and throughout Monroe County. I see the library creating tours and then adding the overlays using pictures from Rochester Images, or digital texts. Wouldn’t it be amazing to do a version of Many Roads To Freedom using this app? The tour would send people to the locations mapped out in the pathfinder, and then overlays could be the images associated with each site. And why not accompany the whole thing with audio?
- Could this app be used to provide audio or static text reviews of library materials? Or perhaps be used for reference interactions?
What else can you think of? And more importantly, who can do this?
Patty
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Pat said,
May 28, 2010 at 10:54 pm
This is cool stuff. I saw this on Gizmodo a few days ago. They’ve got a few more pictures to give a feel for what’s being done: http://gizmodo.com/5547236/strolling-through-19th-century-london-today
I love this concept. There are way too many opportunities for learning with this technology — I’ve often thought it would be cool to walk through a village like Fairport and see it as it was in the 1800s, without the gas station on the corner or whatever. Rochester has some beautiful old buildings within walking distance of the library. Reynolds Arcade and Old City Hall come to mind. It would be great to do an AR tour of the immediate area, as well as doing a Susan B. Anthony thing or a George Eastman view of East Avenue.
Here’s another use of AR: http://cogdogblog.com/2010/05/20/zooburst/
This uses a webcam to overlay an AR onto a story. We did something like this a few weeks ago in Boston. We brought our laptops and webcams and AR software to Cheers, had some beers, and made people say Wow. (Why? Because we are dorks!)
As I mentioned in my comments on the Library 2020 post, AR is about to explode. I’d love to get a project on this going.
The Larry said,
May 29, 2010 at 4:32 pm
I think that it would be technically possible to do what the London people have, including streaming audio. Not sure about reference, though, as that would require a phone capability for the mobile device.
As afar as programing, let’s ask London who did it and how long it took to develop. That way we have a benchmark for looking here in the states.
The Larry said,
May 29, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Well, my nephew is an iPhone/iPad touch software developer, and I asked him for a comment, viz:
“The 3D, live video + GPS augmented reality? To me, it would seem very difficult, because I don’t have the first idea where to start. But there are a lot of apps like this in the App Store, so it must actually be fairly easy — there must be an iPhone API that does most of the work.
I think the hard part for the library would be categorizing and tagging the pictures and other information. You would certainly need description, date, and GPS coordinates for each image (possibly a geographic direction, like “facing NNW” for the overlay).
You should probably also consider a version that lets you call up static pictures at your current location without the live overlay. In terms of iPhones, only the newest ones can do that, and that would leave a lot of older users out of the loop.
I don’t know how they’re getting the perfect “past overlayed on the present” / image matched perfectly with video feed unless they are doing some sort of sophisticated image processing. They may have just faked it out for these screen shots. In reality, the image may just be tagged to the area and direction in which you’re standing, without the perfect overlay.
It’s a neat project!”
So there’s one take on it. But digi and LH could sure do the background work for this.
The Larry said,
May 31, 2010 at 6:15 am
Count me in, Pat!
Pat said,
June 20, 2010 at 11:08 pm
We could definitely do this. If someone finds some grant money or some other source of funding, I would jump in and get started on it right away. Seriously. It would be very cool, very doable, and very relevant.
The Larry said,
August 10, 2010 at 5:46 am
Looks like LC beat us to it.
http://www.appolicious.com/education/apps/279731-library-of-congress-virtual-tour-library-of-congress