Assignment 2 Report

Introduction / Overview

This application seeks to provide a different means of teaching students about prehistoric life, with the use of augmented reality and 3d modelling to encourage students to engage and learn about history in a new way. 

Description of the application

This application displays three dimensional models of prehistoric dinosaurs along with their skeletons and some factual information about them. There have been challenges in sustaining students' level of interest in subjects such as, mathematics, physics, and science. To solve this issue teachers are looking for new ways to increase student engagement in the classroom. Augmented reality has become increasingly useful and will be in the future, with more and more people having access to handheld devices such as mobile phones, augmented reality applications do not require significant extra hardware. The use of augmented reality in classrooms is not a common practice and as such, this new tool will show students a different perspective to traditional learning techniques. The interactions within the application allow students to view all aspects of the model dinosaur, getting up close to them, learning how the structure of the skeleton is, and gaining an understanding of basic facts about the dinosaurs in a dynamic and engaging way. 

Interaction Design

The interactions within the application allow the user to view not only a model of what the dinosaur would have looked like but also the skeletal structure of the dinosaur, the use of the slider to rotate the model allows the user to view all angles of the dinosaur without having to move the device around awkwardly. Finally the ability to view the statistics of each of the dinosaurs educates the user about various facts and allows them to compare each of the dinosaurs.

In future development further interactions such as proximity detection for image targets so they interact with each other, for example when the two different dinosaurs come close to each other an animation of them fighting is displayed. As well as detailed animations of how each of the dinosaurs move would be a useful demonstration. If there was more time allocated to this application, a more diverse range of dinosaurs would be added to the database so a book of image targets could be produced.

Technical Development

This application utilises the camera on a phone to display models in augmented reality. When using the application pointing the camera at the specific image targets will display the various dinosaur models on the screen based on what image target is looked at. There are multiple interactions each of these models have. The first interaction is the large button labeled "Skeleton mode on/off" this enables the switching on and off of the models skeleton. The second interaction is the use of the slider to rotate to model 360 degrees to view all sides. The final interaction is the checkbox labeled "Show statistics" this displays some general statistics of that dinosaur.

Descriptions of 3D Models and references

The each of the following 3D designs (1-3) are used as the models which are displayed when the augmented reality camera views the each of the specific image targets (7-9), when the ‘skeleton mode’ button is press the corresponding skeleton model is displayed (3-6).

1. https://free3d.com/3d-model/t-rex-by-zino-25516.html – Tyrannosaurus Rex model by Zino 

2. https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/triceratops-3d-model-1383752 Triceratops model by leonidius321

3. https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/tylosaurus-17a0332ed82b4383ae9fda9fa32b1080 - Tylosaurus model by Julian Johnson-Mortimer

4. https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/tyrannosaurus-rex-skeleton-77e21c4e5d65468bbe11780ae0557b95 - Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton model by Rigsters

5. https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/tylosaurus-skeleton-high-poly-count-99b25bb528c34089845ea15058e7b5df#download - Tylosaurus skeleton model by Holden Williams

6. https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/animated-triceratops-skeleton-06cb55f941d94dc8b95ac46f92d89e7c - Triceratops skeleton model by Zacxophone

7. https://medium.com/all-animals/tylosaurus-the-greatest-marine-carnivores-of-the-upper-cretaceous-272e1e03508a - Tylosaurus image target

8. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62088874 - Tyrannosaurus Rex image target

9. https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/388083692888333724/ - Triceratops image target

The statistics on each of the panels displayed when the ‘show statistics’ check box is checked were retrieved from the following sources.

https://www.livescience.com/24011-triceratops-facts.html - Triceratops statistics https://www.livescience.com/23868-tyrannosaurus-rex-facts.html