Tuesday 27 June 2023

WebAR with Linocut Prints

During Hack Night at Quelab on June 21st, 2023, we tried to enhance the linocut prints with Augmented Reality.

The basic idea was to use WebAR so that people did not have to download an app to see the Augmented Reality (AR).  

An example of my FAKE AR figure
sitting in a real chair in real space


The printed QR worked to take people to a website on a server -- https://staynalive.net/ar/210223.html -- that brought up my 3D drawing in real space (at least behind the camera lens).

This printed linocut QR code
takes people to a WebAR site


This worked well enough when we experimented during the drawing session on June 22, 2023.  It did take a while to work, and one first had to scan the room with their smart phone before the 3D AR image materialized.  Moreover the AR image is apparently small, and one has to enlarge it with their finger on the smart phone:



TARGET AR


HOWEVER the real goal is to just scan the print -- and have a 3D AR image materialize on top of that print, in the right size and position.  It would be as if one placed a sculpture in front of the print.

The smart phone would have to read the print image as a "target" -- as if it were a QR code -- and direct the smart phone to another web server that would conjure up the 3D AR sculpture over the print.  

  • Note, and AR sculpture is a lot lighter than a real bronze sculpture




8th Wall advertises that they will do exactly that, place an AR image over a "target."  However one has to give them a credit card, even for their "free trial," and they would not accept prepaid gift credit cards.



Therefore we tried WASM.

Adric gave me these links:


And we managed to use one of my prints as a "target" that conjured up a 3D AR tapir.  People would have to first go to a website with their smart phones -- files.iowntheinter.net/wasm-ar/html/index.html

and then scan this print with your smart phone
to see the 3D AR tapir floating about 


The smart phone usually elongates the print image, so the target does not work well, and usually the AR tapir image does not come up




Note: The AR tapir can be summoned directly on a smart phone from this link

With regard to https://files.iowntheinter.net/tapir/ this does not work on a desktop computer. It only works on a cell phone. The code dynamically recognizes that it is running on a phone and brings up a button to activate AR(T).

 

ALSO...but this kind of thing could be done with https://www.raylib.com/examples.html and https://opencv.org/ by writing it in c++ then compiling to webassembly target
 


SUMMARY

WebAR is not perfect yet.  However perhaps we could post a QR code next to a BUCKET PRINT exhibition of say five prints.  The WebAR would recognize each print as a different "target," and bring up a different AR image for each print.  That could be a more robust artistic experience.

AI is even trying to make pretty QR codes, but as Matt Wolfe says, they mostly don't work:

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