Magic Windows | Final Idea

Conceptualizing

Going into concepting what the final assignment would be, I have several criteria for the implementation. As with the midterm assignment, I want the final experience to not only make sense in AR, but also is unique to AR because it can't be told otherwise.

So the end AR product should...

1. take advantage of scale and the ability to virtually manipulate it

2. be site-specific, and

3. have spatial & physical experience as its main mode of interaction

I was also inspired by the works of Zach Lieberman & @transform3d

I like these because this semester I'm taking a class on computational typography, and it seems like with characters and letters, I can make an AR experience that is playful, site-specific, and physically interesting.

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The Concept

My goal is to make an app that allows users in the same vicinity to collaboratively create a typographic sculpture.

Here is my initial design:

So for example, if I'm in Union Square, when I open the app I would see the word "UNION SQUARE" and I can modify the letter "N" to be a lot wider. And when another person use the app in Union Square, they would see the word "UNION SQUARE" but with the "N" widened.

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Lastly, here's a list of technicalities that I need to figure out:

1. Create a database of letterform points using opentype.js

2. Get location of handheld device (Unity's LocationService or Mapbox SDK)

3. Create the communication pipeline between the app and the database (API to get and update coordinates of the letterforms of each character in a location's name)

4. Draw lines and modify the start/end points realtime on Unity Engine

5. Select sphere in scene using Raycast

#MagicWindows #computationaltypography