2015-12-04

Justin McArdle caught my attention after his work with an augmented reality app for Perth’s state war memorial. The app let visitors interact with a fictional soldier who spoke about his experiences at war. He has been involved with a bunch of fantastic projects in AR like this one and was kind enough to spend some time sharing his knowledge and experience for those who might also be considering a move into AR.

“In 5 years time when it starts to hit, it will be like the internet was back in 1992 with immense opportunities for those who understand the medium.” – Justin McArdle

How did you get started in the augmented reality space? Where does your expertise lie?

I come from a background in Film & TV production where I have worked as a director and in production but I did my degree in interactive media (back in the days of shockwave!) so have always had a foot in both camps. Back in 2012, I met some game developers at a film & TV function in Perth and found them to have far more interesting approaches to using technology to tell stories than many of the film makers I was hanging out with. One of them showed me an AR platform called Aurasma, I got it (the tech) and what it means for the way we interact with the world immediately and was committed to exploring how it could be used as a storytelling medium and pushing that forward. I suppose my expertise lies in understanding the technology (its strengths and limitations) at a general level and knowing how to pull projects together (financing, creative dev, team building, tech dev, etc) as an AR producer.



One of Justin McArdle’s AR projects – The Time Window®

How did the Perth War Memorial AR project come about?

The beauty of AR is that it is about a contextual experience. With this in mind, we have developed a heritage AR experience product called “Time Window®” which presents AR content in relevant contextual settings. For example, we have been commissioned to create a “TW” AR tour of a battlefield. The physical space is real and we “augment” the space with the contextual content. With the 100 year commemorations coming up, I wanted to develop a project that contributed to the legacy, my great grandfather was killed at the battle of the Somme and this prompted the subject matter. At the WA State memorial (and all others) we are presented with thousands of names to remember, but who were the people behind the names? What were their stories? We worked with the RSL to develop the project to create an ANZAC avatar that would come to life in the memorial precinct and introduce the story to a younger tech savvy generation. We launched the project two weeks ago and it has been immensely successful, especially with school aged children.

Do you have any tips for developers or entrepreneurs trying to convince clients of the value in AR?

If you have to convince a client of the value then they maybe aren’t the right client to develop an AR project with. The value in AR right now is a new way to bring genuine magic into what they are doing. It also shows the client is interested in innovation and being at the forefront of using technology to communicate what they do. Ultimately though, the AR should be solving a genuine problem for the client and not be used as a gimmick. Sit down with them and see if developing an AR app is going to be of real value or if another solution will be more effective. Saying that, in the next few years you will be inundated with clients who will need your AR services as it is going to be the next ultimate computing platform since the invention of the PC.

What AR SDKs and software do your team use to build AR? Did you choose these tools for any particular advantages they provided? Any recommendations?

The usual stack: Unity, Vuforia (although now PTC have bought Vuforia from Qualcomm, it’s going to be interesting where they take it and how the pricing structure is going to work around that ecosystem), we have also worked with Metaio and are obviously keen to see what developments the Magic Leap SDK will bring to the table. Vuforia is easy to work with in Android implementations but a bit trickier in iOS. I’d recommend you have pretty decent C# scripting experience in Unity otherwise you could try some of the middleware solutions like Juanio or the BlipAR platform.

What skills and knowledge outside of the typical software development side of things are crucial to success with augmented reality projects?

The same old storytelling skills apply really. It all starts with the client and audience, then coming up with a great idea that articulates the brief, then great art skills which could be 2D illustration, 3D creative, not forgetting audio design and music… etc. Remember augmented reality tech is just another delivery mechanism for content, the idea and then the content has to be good before you even fire up Unity!

If you could give one piece of advice to someone considering getting into AR, what would it be?

Be prepared for things being slow, for now and even for the next few years. We are not even fully into the VR phase yet. VR will be the next big consumer trend, then AR will emerge. Those insane and amazing innovators like Magic Leap, Meta and Vuzix… etc that are developing the eyewear and associated SDKs are the real pioneers in the AR space because once the tech is perfected, AR will fully change the way human beings use digital. The world will be the operating system. So my advice is to stick with it and perfect your skills because in 5 years time when it starts to hit, it will be like the internet was back in 1992 with immense opportunities for those who understand the medium.

Have there been any surprisingly difficult aspects of building experiences in AR that caught you off guard?

Physical implementation. There is a whole skill set in understanding the physical environments that your AR is going to be working in, from environmental concerns to aesthetic. For example, when to use frame markers versus image based and what are the lighting conditions the marker will exist in? It’s all about context.

What is your personal favourite AR app out there today?

My favourite is our first Time Window at the Fremantle Arts Centre, WA. We unlocked a layer of history with a site specific mix of 2D and 3D content all baked in to an AR app in 2013. A really cutting edge project.

Any final thoughts?

Anyone seriously into AR – stick with it and grow the mainstream understanding of what is a truly evolutionary new computing medium!

I would like to extend a big thank you to Justin for taking the time to answer these questions. You can find his AR digital production company at www.frame.ar.com.

The post Justin McArdle and the upcoming opportunities in AR appeared first on Dev Diner.

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