James May Science Stories: Augmented Reality app for your Android phone

The latest experiment into bringing Augmented Reality to our Android phones is by the London Science Museum, in partnership with app developer DigiCove. The app, called “James May ScienceStories” released in April 2012. It brings James May, the inimitable presenter of Top Gear and Man Lab into life as a 3D animation at the London Science Museum.

As you walk through the museum, nine of the exhibits have a “triggering marker”, a poster pasted on an information plinth. Open your app and select the exhibit you are viewing from the list. Focus your camera on the marker. James May appears as a 3D object on the camera’s display. Walking up and down the information plinth, he describes the exhibit and how it has an important place in the history of the world. There are subtitles and the commentary can be paused or resumed using the controls within the app. If you lose the lock on the marker during a presentation, it will stop and you will have to restart again from the beginning. The app has a map to help you find the exhibit in the museum and a quiz to gauge how well you have grasped the information. The app has an option for Facebook sharing too. 

Currently, ten exhibits in the Making of the Modern World Gallery including the Cray 1A computer, Rolls Royce Merlin engine, Model T Ford and the X-Ray machine have the augmented reality commentary. Updates to the app to cover more exhibits are in the pipeline and five more have already been recorded.

The app has an “at home” mode too, so that you don’t have to be at the Museum to use it. To use the app in this mode, print out the triggering marker and place it somewhere. Then choose the exhibit from the list and focus the camera on the marker to trigger the James May hologram.

The app has been developed using Qualcomm's Vuforia augmented reality software development kit. Augmented Reality technology in itself has made great advances and can recognize objects from the camera without the need for a triggering marker. However, this would require a high resolution camera. The use of a triggering marker in the app makes it compatible with lower-end Android devices too. The 3D hologram of James May was created by taking photos of James May from different angles and positioning them over an animated wireframe.

Though this augmented reality app has a long way to go in terms of usability, it is still a very interesting step towards practical applications of this technology.