SCAD recruited me as lead programmer to work with the Google Daydream design team to concept and prototype an Augmented Reality application using ARCore. We had 9 weeks for the project and 16 students from different majors were involved. Researching, communication and development in such a short time was a huge challenge for me. ARCore in that time was new and it was in beta mode. I was able to come up with an approach to detect walls and having occlusion for the first time in ARCore. Developing animation and modifying key frames were some of the other original concepts that I came up with. I learned a lot from this project and I was one of the students who present this project in Google head quarter in San Francisco. The Googelers really liked the project, and here is some of their feedback to us:
Robert Huizar, Program Manager"The presentation was incredibly well prepared and thoughtful. From thinking through occlusion challenges by drawing on the board and setting up the lego blocks to planning out fun and engaging animations. The joy factor was evident throughout the entire presentation. It was clear that the team had great chemistry and leveraged that to really communicate the value of using AR in this context. I was sold!"
Kelly Schaefer, Product Manager"I was particularly impressed by the attention they paid to going beyond AR object placement and creation into things like animation, sound, and editing. These are all things that Google and the AR industry are experimenting with, and it was inspirational to see their take on AR creativity."
Rob Jagnow, Software EngineerThere was a moment when an animated "rocket ship" was occluded behind a wall, and several folks in my room immediately went, "What?! They have working occlusion?!"
Elisabeth Morant, Product Manager"I found the students' presentation to be very impressive. I particularly appreciated the time and thought spent identifying their user and crafting design principles that guided their process. The presentation was polished and fun, and ultimately communicated both what they came up with, and why. The group was very talented, and it's clear they worked well together (and actually enjoyed and were passionate about the project). I recognize that it's really challenging to build tools for creating content/art using just a phone screen as input, but they managed to hit a great balance between usability and fun."
Chris Kelley, Interaction Designer & PrototyperOcclusion on the wall was a great demo moment, I was literally thinking "ooh don't get too close to that wall, going to break the illusion..." and then BOOM, wall occlusion. Rob and I turned and looked at each other and said "...waaait a minute what just happened there." The technique would ultimately be hard to scale due to reliability of tracking points on a wall (clever for them to doodle on the whiteboard first) - but awesome for the demo.
Robert Huizar, Program Manager"The presentation was incredibly well prepared and thoughtful. From thinking through occlusion challenges by drawing on the board and setting up the lego blocks to planning out fun and engaging animations. The joy factor was evident throughout the entire presentation. It was clear that the team had great chemistry and leveraged that to really communicate the value of using AR in this context. I was sold!"
Kelly Schaefer, Product Manager"I was particularly impressed by the attention they paid to going beyond AR object placement and creation into things like animation, sound, and editing. These are all things that Google and the AR industry are experimenting with, and it was inspirational to see their take on AR creativity."
Rob Jagnow, Software EngineerThere was a moment when an animated "rocket ship" was occluded behind a wall, and several folks in my room immediately went, "What?! They have working occlusion?!"
Elisabeth Morant, Product Manager"I found the students' presentation to be very impressive. I particularly appreciated the time and thought spent identifying their user and crafting design principles that guided their process. The presentation was polished and fun, and ultimately communicated both what they came up with, and why. The group was very talented, and it's clear they worked well together (and actually enjoyed and were passionate about the project). I recognize that it's really challenging to build tools for creating content/art using just a phone screen as input, but they managed to hit a great balance between usability and fun."
Chris Kelley, Interaction Designer & PrototyperOcclusion on the wall was a great demo moment, I was literally thinking "ooh don't get too close to that wall, going to break the illusion..." and then BOOM, wall occlusion. Rob and I turned and looked at each other and said "...waaait a minute what just happened there." The technique would ultimately be hard to scale due to reliability of tracking points on a wall (clever for them to doodle on the whiteboard first) - but awesome for the demo.
