AR BROCHURE

Show them your values!

Our client is one of the biggest pharmaceutical corporations in the world. They are pioneers in technology as well as a major humanitarian agent in the fight to tackle varying world health issues. The AR Brochure is an informational augmented reality app we have prepared for their European division.

Client

NDA

Sector

Pharmaceuticals

Health

Services

Mobile app

ARkit/ARCore

Technology

Vuforia

Challenge

Highly informational and…interactive

Our client needed a multilingual application that provides information about their current technological capabilities, the scope of their actions and their vision for the future. This app should be able to give its users a deeper understanding of their structure, plans, and goals while being informative and educational.

As Pharmacy is noted to be one of the largest industries in the world, it is not hard to imagine having a global endeavor clashing against massive humanitarian challenges. Hence, the AR Brochure needed to be both specific in content and global in reach.

But this is not all, another challenge involved was making the important subject matter as attractive and accessible as possible to a wider range of people, many of whom are not yet involved in it.

Process and project scope

Scope

In the case of AR, the chosen medium for communicating ideas is video. With the use of Vuforia technology visual markers are recognized and used by the application to display specific video content related to it. This allows not only for changing still pictures into movies but also for placing the user inside the video for a 360-degree experience (e.g. virtual tour through the company’s manufacturing complex). With the use of our app all that is accessible from a simple informational folder.

Process

Our very first step was to weigh our options. We went through a number of possible solutions to optimize the functionality of the AR Brochure for any kind of mobile device.

The pros and cons of each were judged by our team as well as the client so that we could pinpoint the most suitable solution. We understood that the best solution might not always be the right solution to convey the client’s desires across. Hence, working tightly with the client isn’t just part of the process but a cornerstone by which evaluations are done.

Collaboration

It was crucial during the development to keep constant information flow between us and the client. Our main conversational subject involved the preparation of files and ensuring optimal ways of hosting and streaming content. This was due to the fact that the provided videos needed to go through the necessary adjustments to be streamable without sacrificing quality and maintaining the desired resolution.

Our client also had access to WIP versions of the application, especially in later parts of AR Brochure development, which gave them insights into how the process was progressing. It also allowed for quick feedback when adjustment or amendments where required.

Business value

Overcoming language barriers

Users can swap between available languages at any time while the application adapts to their choice changing versions of videos and descriptions accordingly. The client has full control over the video content so that they can change and update it in the future, within the scope of the product, as they see fit. The optimal results in streaming functionality were achieved by using a back-end solution provided by the client combined with video formatting done by us.

Development of the AR Brochure can be seen as another step towards a general-purpose type of application that can be easily modified and adjusted for different cases in a variety of different industries. Since it gives the end-user a more in-depth view of what the creators are trying to pass across, it is seen as not just a tool for explanations but one that can enable the exploration of concepts and ideas.

Technology stack

The application was made in the Unity 3D game engine with the use of Vuforia technology. It can be used on both Android and iOS operated devices.

Built with C++ and years of customization for optimal performance, the Unity 3D is loved by solo developers and triple-A studios worldwide, as the world’s most popular game engine.

On the other hand, Vuforia is widely known as the industry leader in industrial augmented reality through its best-in-class computer vision technology, robust tracking capabilities and breadth of platform support. Adding these two together usually makes for stunning visuals as well as smooth interactions.