AUGMENTED ROUTES

Explore new destinations in your area

Our client specializes in creating premium experiences for a wide variety of industries, from real estate to travel, industry to human resources, car dealerships to big brands. They required the development of an Augmented Routes app for one of their own client.

Client

NDA

Sector

Tourism

Services

AR mobile app

Technology

ARKit/ARCore Unity

Visual results video

Challenge

The many augmented routes of your area

The client wanted to create a tourist guide application with GPS-based content reveal and rich AR interaction. Each point of interest contains information about the location, animated AR models that can be placed in the environment.

Another feature is a knowledge quiz and marker detection for displaying portals to gaze inside the historic architecture. The Augmented Routes app downloads the route and point of interest data from a REST API and the content is managed through a web CMS.

Process and project scope

Scope

Thanks to the Augmented Routes app, tourists can aim their smartphone camera at a chosen location, and points of interest in the vicinity appear overlaid on the screen’s real-time view. Every POI has a type icon and detailed description, which contains an information panel with a gallery.

Visitors can tap specific attractions on the screen to obtain more detailed information and adjust the distance of their area of focus. What’s more, the app encourages the user to learn some interesting facts about the visited places through the quiz functionality.

Process

The app has GPS-enabled maps and AR camera views and features pre-loaded information so users can use their smartphone GPS offline without incurring data roaming charges. The app has access to additional AR features, including animated models, AR content displaying portals, or a single-answer knowledge quiz. The AR model assets are downloaded from the server and displayed when the user taps the appropriate content type.

Collaboration

The client provided us with UI designs and Augmented Routes’ summary document. During app development, the client provided the test content – including photos, descriptions, quizzes and animated models for displaying at the points of interest. The Project Manager coordinated both the sprint planning and the work of the developers to achieve the best result.

Business value

All Augmented Routes lead to adventure

Augmented reality, unlike MR or VR, is fully accessible to anyone with a smartphone. As AR helps more travelers get around, it’s also presenting a huge opportunity to boost the entertainment value of travel attractions – beyond simply promoting a destination, it can help improve a visitor’s experience after arrival.

Augmented Routes is a perfect example of a tourist guide app, allowing the user to check out not only the point of interest information traveling along the route but also admire the antique architecture or art pieces in an interactive manner.

Now, with AR apps that make tourist recommendations, directions and even language translations instantly pop up through your phone’s camera view, travelers have access to data about their new location right at their fingertips. For example, Augmented Routes provides the user with valuable information on local restaurants, toilets, shops and bike parking spaces.

Technology stack

The application was specially created for full compatibility with both Android and iOS devices. Built with the Unity 3D engine, all the features were coded in C#.

The backend is written in PHP and JavaScript, based on Drupal 8 CMF and Symphony 2. The data is stored in the client’s MySQL database.

Unity - the main tool used by 4Experience