All targets used in AR app

Here we describe the final version of the AR Libray Project’s app and its practical use in the library.

The physical items used in the app

We took pictures of covers of four books, and created three location targets for three collections.

The books

All books used in app

The books we chose are books from three different collections, sharing at least one subject heading. These books are:

Title Author Collection Subject headings
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari 42 Collection Human evolution, Society, Human behavior
Homo Deus Yuval Noah Harari 42 Collection Futurology, Society, Human behavior
Brave New World Aldous Huxley Scifi Collection Futurology, Society, Human behavior
Human Biology Sara Stinson et al. (editors) Main Book Collection Human evolution, Human genetics, Human biology

The collections

All AR location targets used in the app

These targets which we called AR Light Houses are located next to a collection which can be scanned to get collection information, book shelf location and direction to other collections.

This a typical placement of an AR Light House next to the 42 Collection: Typical placement of an AR Light House next to the 42 Collection

The collections the books were chosen from are:

Collection name Approx. size Type
42 Collection 5000 Popular science, philosphy of science, history of science
Main Book Collection 8000 Natural science
SciFi Collection 10000 Science fiction

Overview of app functionality

The main functionality of the app is to give the user:

  1. AR collection information:
    1. Decription of collection
    2. Wayfinding to collection of interest
    3. Shelf location of book of interest
  2. AR Book information:
    1. Sleeve description
    2. Related books - similar books that share at least one subject heading
    3. More books - more books from same author
    4. Video (as file on server or from Youtube)
    5. Wikipedia

Expected procedure using the app is as follows:

  1. User gets information about the collection from an AR Light House: Get info about collection
  2. After finding a book of interest, the user scans the book with the app and gets AR metadata information: Get info about collection
  3. After finding a related book from the AR metadata, the user scans the AR Light House again and gets directions to the location of related book: Get info about collection
  4. Arriving at the collection, the user scans this collection’s AR Light House and gets shelf location of related book: Get info about collection

Demonstration video

We have a Youtube video demonstrating actual use of the prototype.

Screenshots

These are four screenshots of the functioning prototype:

  1. Scanning book cover displaying metadata available for the book (Sapiens by Yuval Harari).
  2. Browsing related books.
  3. Getting directions to a different collection containing related book (Brave New World is in the Scifi Collection).
  4. Arriving at the Scifi Collection getting information about the collection and shelf location of book.

Screenshost of app

Blog

  • Read our blog on how we developed the app.

Downloads