I wanted to experiment with location based augmented reality and I wanted to do it in the easiest possible way. Metaverse from gometa.io is a service that makes it easy to create AR applications. Content authoring is done through a web portal and the AR content is consumed through Android and IOS apps.
I've always been fascinated by the early history of San Francisco and especially the large number of ships buried under the financial district in what was Yerba Buena Cove. I decided to combine the two and build an AR experience that allows the user to find the location of these buried ships. Fortunately there is plenty of information available on the web.
I've always been fascinated by the early history of San Francisco and especially the large number of ships buried under the financial district in what was Yerba Buena Cove. I decided to combine the two and build an AR experience that allows the user to find the location of these buried ships. Fortunately there is plenty of information available on the web.
Building It
Metaverse has the concept of Quests. A Quest is composed of a set of experiences. Each experience is tied to a physical location and is made of a number of scenes. The system has some rich functionality allowing for scavenger hunts and the like, but I all i needed was a way to hold a set of geo-located information panels.
There are a variety of Scene types, the most basic being an image and some text, but you can also play video, go to web pages, as well as giving and receiving items for gameplay. I decided that each of my Experiences would have two Scenes, one showing the name of the ship along with an image, and one giving more information using a simple webpage. I authored and hosted the webpages using Weebly.
I tested the app using spurious scenes in my neighborhood before deploying the content to SF making it easier to test.
There are a variety of Scene types, the most basic being an image and some text, but you can also play video, go to web pages, as well as giving and receiving items for gameplay. I decided that each of my Experiences would have two Scenes, one showing the name of the ship along with an image, and one giving more information using a simple webpage. I authored and hosted the webpages using Weebly.
I tested the app using spurious scenes in my neighborhood before deploying the content to SF making it easier to test.
Experience for The Rome, showing the 2 scenes.
In the above image you can see the list of Experiences in the Quest on the left, with The Rome Experience currently being edited. The first Scene appears when the user geo-locates the target. When they tap the button at the bottom of the page they are taken to the second page which displays the mini webpage. The experience then ends but stays visible on the map, but its possible to have the experience disappear or trigger another event.
What the User Sees
 The Rome is buried under the Bocce Ball courts by the ferry terminal. |  The webpage provides more information |
In Summary
Creating the Ships buried under San Francisco quest took me about a day and a half. I then spent a very pleasant afternoon in the City testing the app and finding the ships. Apps like this definitely show the potential for guided/curated exploration experiences as well as games, scavenger hunts and promotional activities. I had a lot of fun making the app, I think anyone with minimal computer skills could do the same Within a large city with tourism like San Francisco the applications are almost limitless. How about a tour of the cities best street art, or a historic trip down the summer of love featuring the music and psycadelic rock posters of 1967?
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