NCAR partners with Smithsonian museum for augmented reality project

July 8, 2021

Part of an image from the augmented reality application.

Part of an image from the AR application shows the path taken by the smartphone as well as the point cloud overlaid on the building map.

NCAR and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture have teamed up to develop an augmented reality (AR) application for use in museums and exhibit spaces.

“This project demonstrates how AR technologies can be applied in novel ways to engage wider and more diverse audiences as well as help promote NCAR research and science to the broader public,” according to the CISL Outreach, Diversity, and Education team’s AJ Lauer.

The team is developing a prototype that will have two components: An AR application that enables visitors’ mobile devices to access nearby audio tags and play the relevant audio as they move through a space, and a web-based application for museum and other personnel to create and manage the audio content. See this CISL article for more information.