Скачать или смотреть Hey! AR Magazine NTU (Conestoga VRP Case Study Video)

Hey!
Permit me to introduce you to "Hey!" — not the informal salutation, but rather an Augmented Reality (AR) magazine crafted by the Corporate Communications Office of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of engaging in a stimulating conversation with Vivien Chiong, Ph.D, Eileen Tan, and Lester Kok, from the Corporate Communications Office at NTU.

To provide some background, the previous year, I read a fascinating article on LinkedIn that shed light on a university magazine's innovative use of Augmented Reality (AR) to enhance the narratives of the institution and its constituents' accomplishments. This real-world application of AR technology piqued my interest, and I requested a .pdf copy of the magazine and downloaded the associated AR application to see for myself. I was not disappointed.

https://www.hey.ntu.edu.sg/

The Corporate Communication team, the driving force behind this quarterly publication, has harnessed the power of AR for a period of more than four years now, culminating in the creation of over a dozen such dynamic issues.

This strategic shift to AR was part of a comprehensive revamp of the original Hey! magazine. Initially, AR supplemented approximately 20% of the magazine content, serving as a test bed while the team figured out a new editorial process and overcame technical obstacles presented by this novel format. Fast forward to the present, and an impressive 70% of the stories now incorporate AR components.

Some insights:

Under conventional circumstances, a magazine's cover and feature stories are captured in several photos, with the final images selected later in the editorial process. However, the introduction of AR necessitated a significant alteration to this process. In the case of an AR enhanced story, the photo becomes the target that triggers an augmented reality experience such as a video segment. It became apparent that to seamlessly align the photo and the AR video's initial frame (considering lighting, angle, lens attributes, etc.), reliance on mobile phone cameras was essential for all the magazine's images and video sequences and that the decision as to which photo to use for the magazine had to be taken on the spot, not later in the process.

The team's in-house 3D designer/animator also encountered challenges related to balancing the fidelity of the 3D models with the download time, often resulting in difficult compromises. After all, there is really no point in serving AR content if it takes too long to download… the reader will simply skip the experience and move on.

Working closely with the tech vendor (Dreemar) is also very important, many new app functionalities came from on-going discussion they have had with their vendor.

These and other insights gleaned from this dynamic team have been invaluable. I am eager to incorporate this new knowledge into my course materials, providing my students at Conestoga College with a successful real-world example of this technology.

#AR #NTU #Magazine #conestoga