While we love to focus on Interactive Print and how it can enhance the reading experience of magazines, newspapers and other printed materials, people are currently using the Layar Creator to enhance all sorts of things. Even nature.
If you’ve ever been to a national park or any other outdoor nature spot, you probably remember the information panels most locations display to provide information to readers. They’re found everywhere, even at monuments and other tourist attractions. But what if those static panels could come to life with digital content?
Take, for example, the Dutch Natuurmonumenten (Nature Reserves) in Texel. The info panels at the reserves have been augmented using the Creator to provide a guided video tour of the scenery.
Park ranger Eckard Boot hosts the videos from the very spot where the panels stand, providing answers to popular questions and details about the species of animals and plants in the various areas. So far 11 panels have been enhanced with Eckard’s videos, and they even include “View with Layar” stickers on them to let people know they can be scanned!
The most interesting thing about the Natuurmonumenten’s efforts to enhance their panels is that they did it all by themselves, including the stickers. The Layar Creator allowed them to upload photos of the panels and enhance them with links, social media buttons and, of course, Eckard’s video tours.
We love to see individuals taking the initiative and creating awesome new content with the Layar Creator. This just goes to show that there is no end to the number of ways in which the Layar Creator can be used.
Layar has teamed up with the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF, or WNF here in the Netherlands) to help promote their campaign raising awareness about the environment.
And there’s a special celebrity guest helping us out: Carice van Houten, a Dutch actress known for her role as Melisandre in the hit television series Game of Thrones.
Thanks to our friends at Boomerang, special postcards are being distributed throughout the Netherlands featuring the famous WWF panda bear logo. If you scan the cards with Layar, a 3D Earth appears!
WWF is asking you to have some fun with their card! Scan the postcard and take a screenshot of the globe in a unique or funny way. You can see Carice’s example to get you started! Submit the photo to WNF and you could win a healthy, sustainable dinner for 2!
Check out the video below featuring Carice for more info! Good luck!
The artist and developer tandem teamed with Derby’s Museum and Art Gallery, as well as the Royal Crown Derby Museum to help celebrate Wright’s work and relationship with the famous Derby porcelain factory. Now anyone who visits the museums and views Wright’s work can simultaneously view related porcelain sculptures placed into the artwork digitally with Layar.
“The beauty of feature tracking is that the overlay can be exactly positioned” says Goto, who along with Leach used Layar Vision’s feature tracking technology to create the artistic montages.
“QR codes have in the past been tried in galleries to link viewers to additional information, but it is a cumbersome, rather un-visual process,” he adds. “Feature tracking is primarily visual, and therefore all the more appropriate for engaging an art gallery audience.”
For examples, you can visit Goto’s website which shows you the various works of art with their accompanying porcelain sculptures. Pull up the images of Wright’s paintings and scan them with Layar to view the montages created by Goto and Leach.
The Occupy Wall Street protests quickly spread from New York City to the rest of the United States to the rest of the world, and it’s only fitting they should now occupy Augmented Reality, where neither blockades nor pepper spray and baton-wielding police officers can keep you off of Wall Street.
Layar developer and Manifest.AR founding member Mark Skwarek has made a global call to activists to make themselves seen and heard in AR, which according to the AR Occupy Wall Street blog, is much more difficult to do in “actual” reality.
“Protesters were not given permits to protest at Wall Street forcing them blocks from the New York Stock Exchange [NYSE]. Wall Street was barricaded off. Only part of the sidewalk was accessible to the public and there was a constant heavy police presence.
arOCCUPYWALLSTREET takes the protest to the heart of the financial district, placing them directly in front of the NYSE. Augmented reality gives protesters the ability to have a truly global affect on world events.”
Throughout the summer, we’ve covered some of the highlights of Bruce Sterling’s Layar-sponsored AR design class at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.
As all good things must come to an end, so has this class, but not without some impressive final student projects! You can read all our posts related to the Design Class here.
This video was made by students Josh Finklea, Nico Sala and Jason Yeh for a concept called See/k. The See/k concept is intended for a store experience and was developed for a high culture fashion label as a means to create interest in the release of a limited edition perfume. Check it out!
While we love to focus on Interactive Print and how it can enhance the reading experience of magazines, newspapers and other printed materials, people are currently using the Layar Creator to enhance all sorts of things. Even nature.
Layar has teamed up with the 
The 