World's First AR Pop-up Book for iPad and iPhone
Introducing a few sample pages from my new Augmented Reality (AR) Pop-up Book, “Who’s Afraid of Bugs?” with video and images below.
I’d like to present the first AR Pop-up Book for mobile devices using image recognition (a.k.a. regular images to trigger augmented content, as opposed to the black and white square glyphs that are common in AR). Integrating image recognition in the design, the book can hence be enjoyed alone as a regular pop-up book, or supplemented with augmented digital content when viewed through a mobile device equipped with a camera, such as an iPad 2 or iPhone 4.
Playful rhyming text takes you through the storybook where various ‘creepy crawlies’ (spider, ant, and butterfly) are awaiting to be discovered, appearing virtually as 3D models you can interact with. A tarantula attacks when you touch it, an ant hyperlinks to educational content with images and diagrams, and a butterfly appears flapping its wings atop a flower in a meadow.
The story for the AR Pop-up Book was inspired by AR psychotherapy studies for the treatment of phobias such as arachnophobia. AR provides a safe, controlled environment to conduct exposure therapy within a patient’s physical surroundings, creating a more believable scenario with heightened ‘presence’ and greater immediacy than Virtual Reality (VR).
[Article: Juan, Carmen M. et al. “Using Augmented Reality to Treat Phobias.” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 25.6 (2005): 31-37.]
In some ways, the AR Pop-up Book, “Who’s Afraid of Bugs?” provides a playful method for exposure and learning through story and technology to help children overcome their fear of bugs and discover that they aren’t so scary after all.
Pages from the AR Pop-up Book were demoed live during my talk on AR and Storytelling at ARE 2011 in Silicon Valley.
Design, concept, paper-engineering and production: Helen Papagiannis
Special thanks to Lukas Gruber for support with 3D model conversions.
AR Software: Junaio
*UPDATE: I’ve been so flattered by the wonderful response to my AR Pop-Up Book! A Great big thanks to everyone for blogging, tweeting, and sharing my work, I really appreciate it! Here’s some of the coverage, thanks again: WIRED, Games Alfresco, Augmented Reality World, Adafruit, VR News, Junaio
PURCHASE “AUGMENTED HUMAN” BOOK: ENGLISH: AMAZON (US), AMAZON (CA), AMAZON (UK), ITUNES, GOOGLE PLAY
KOREAN TRANSLATION: ACORN PRESS, CHINESE TRADITIONAL SCRIPT TRANSLATION: GOTOP, ALSO AVAILABLE IN INDIA: SHROFF PUBLISHERS