December 2012

Nova Scotia Tourism AR App

Dane Aleksander—graphic artist in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The exploration of the possibilities and opportunities of augmented reality (AR) in the early days at Ad-Dispatch was lead by the marketing team and in the direction of product advertising. So the animation and development teams were either tasked to create augmented reality experiences that tracked directly to merchandise or to create augmented reality kiosk experiences that indirectly promoted a product at an exhibition. We designed kiosk experiences that ranged from a Volvo augmented reality concept car at an auto trade show, to Raymond Weil wearable augmented reality watches, to travel advertising for Nova Scotia Tourism with an augmented reality showcase of the Skyline Trail in Cape Breton. ^[1]

The Nova Scotia Tourism AR kiosk was an experience tailored for an exhibition space, with an 8 by 8 foot tracker image that was printed, shipped and assembled somewhere in Europe I think, I think Germany. I designed a minimal graphical user interface (GUI) with a tap-to-start menu plus an info button. The heads-up-display (HUD) in the AR view also included a take photo button, below-left, and social share option, below-right, for users to send and keep a souvenir of the experience. ^[2]