Augmented Reality: A Creative Perspective

In my second year of school at Algonqun College, my teacher decided to introduce his class to this new, soon to be huge, technology. He started the lecture by asking if any of us had ever heard of Augmented Reality (AR) and...

...we all just gave him blank stares.

Augmented Reality marker

He told us to go to two websites, and print out these black and white square icons on a sheet of paper (later I learned they are actually Augmented Reality markers).

As we followed the instructions on the websites and held these markers up to our webcam, the entire class gasped when 3D images popped out of the marker. When we moved, the image on the screen moved. When we rotated the paper to see what would happen, the 3D image rotated, too! We were pretty amazed with this earlier generation of AR.

Ideas started pouring into our heads about how and where this could be used (we were creatives, nonetheless), and how this could change the future of immersive technology.

I just finished a six-week internship at Merchlar and am very fortunate to be working here full-time as a designer. The Augmented Reality landscape has evolved from the black-and-white-squared-icons markers and simple 3D images to an array of high-quality, practical, and immersive artwork. I am very excited to learn more about this technology and see all of it's creative uses in application.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Megan MacNaughton is the Designer at Merchlar.