AR and Historical Re-creations

The above picture comes from the wikipedia article on Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The picture is entitled "young man poses with huge pile of buffalo bones ready to be shipped".

Here at Talking Dog Studios in our on-going exploration of augmented reality, we've started investigating the world of mobile AR. The Layar app for iPhone and Google Android phones seemed to be the most obvious place to start. We have been thinking about AR, tourism and places of historical interest ever since we made our AR project for Saskatchewan Tourism so it seemed logical to take that a little further.

We started out by trying to put simple "Points of Interest" (POI) in our parking lot here at Talking Dog. We thought it would also be interesting to explore Saskatchewan's history of buffalo herds: the original name for the city we live in was "Pile of Bones", and it got its name from the huge piles of bones that were left behind by the buffalo hunters in the area.

So, through a little tinkering we built ourselves a herd of buffalo taking up all of our parking spots. This picture is of 100 virtual buffalo as seen from google maps (currently this is not publicly visible).

(Incidentally, bison is the more correct term for these animals, but buffalo still tends to be what people around here say in conversation).

At Talking Dog we understand the importance of sound to create a believable experience. To add to the realism we also allowed for the sound of a herd to be triggered when you get within a certain distance.

Next, we placed our herd of 3d buffalo models we had created in a field adjacent to Regina's Royal Saskatchewan Museum.


We're very excited by the possibilities of historical re-creations using mobile devices, and this seems like a good start. At present our herd of buffalo can only be seen if you come to the open space south east of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum here in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

This project should be published relatively soon, and we'll be sure to spread the word when we have it up. As always, follow us on twitter for more up to the minute updates on what's going on in AR.

Here's to our augmented future!

The Talking Dog AR team.

Augmented Reality Season's Greetings

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozEfHjAbmwE


All the best of the holidays to you and yours! From here in Saskatchewan, Canada, the gang at Talking Dog Studios have created a unique Christmas present for you - an augmented reality page that lets you look into your webcam and see yourself as Santa Claus. There's lots of different Santa faces to choose from, and when you see one you like, just click on the "Take a Picture" icon to save a photo of you as Santa to your computer or to share with your friends on facebook. Check it out!

http://www.talkingdogstudios.com/ar/santa

This AR uses facial recognition, so no tags required. We hope you get lots of laughs from this free web page.

Best wishes,

Talking Dog AR

Crazy Wakeboarder

We had a great time at the Saskatchewan Communications Expo Tradeshow last week, introducing Augmented Reality to a number of curious onlookers and media professionals who had not come across this exciting tool before. People really got a kick out of our "Crazy Wakeboarder" which is a fun diversion, but it's also a fairly unique example of what you can do with a little creativity: unlike most AR projects, where the 3D images are generated "above" the marker, in this case everything is "behind" the marker, so it's like you're looking through a window into another world. If you twist the marker you can look up into the sky, or look down at the frothing water, or look left and right to see the skyline of Waskesiu Lake, which is one of the popular vacation sites located right here in our home province of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Here's a video demonstrating our 3D animated "Crazy Wakeboarder" doing his tricks out on the water.

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4E7QW-mMzM

If you'd like to try it out yourself, here's the link:
http://www.talkingdogstudios.com/sasktourism/


By the way, there'll be audio geeks out there who recognize the Wilhelm Scream is the sound our wakeboarder makes when he wipes out. If you're not familiar with this "sound designer's inside joke" check out the wikipedia article on the subject here.

Best augmented wishes to you all,

Talking Dog Studios

Welcome to Talking Dog AR

Talking Dog Studios is based in the middle of Canada. Our team have been creating sound and music for television and film since 1989 at our current location in Regina, Saskatchewan, in a huge building that was originally constructed by General Motors to manufacture vehicles way back in 1927. Our most successful project so far has been the hit television series "Corner Gas". Other recent films we've worked on include "Hungry Hills", "Surveillance", and "The Englishman's Boy".

Talking Dog has been looking into "Augmented Reality" (AR) since the beginning of 2009. We are excited to be displaying some of the projects that we have been working on since then.

Our current project can be found at howbigisthebaby.com . This site is a fun way for kids or adults to hold up the augmented reality marker in front of their tummies and imagine there's a baby growing inside, and we know this will also be a useful tool for educators wanting to engage their students more as they see themselves holding a developing baby through its nine months of development.

Here are some of the other AR projects we've worked on so far:
Doritos contest
Tenth Dimension 3D Helix
Saskatchewan Tourism

We've also recently been mentioned in the Regina Leader-Post newspaper.

You can also start following us on Twitter.

Are you imagining that Augmented Reality could be a useful tool for promoting your company or project? Are you a web developer wanting to add an augmented reality window to one of your clients' sites? Please email us at ar@talkingdogstudios.com .

And have fun augmenting your reality!

Talking Dog Studios
www.talkingdogstudios.com
1212A Winnipeg St.
Regina, SK Canada
306 790 4008