c[AR]

Even in today's virtual world, the process of car buying remains one of the few activities that demands an in-person presence. There is so many factors to take into consideration when purchasing a car: color, size, interior, exterior, legroom. These are all things that you can't experience from just simply shopping online. Or can you?

Inspiration

There are a few reasons why we decided to create an augmented reality based application for car shopping and car insurance. We wanted to create an immersive experience that would allow users to see what a car looks like in the real world, as well as in their own personal space. This helps first-time car buyers in particular with deciding on which car to buy. For the car insurance aspect of the app, we wanted to create an experience that would be fun and interactive, while still allowing the user to gleam useful information on car damages and insurance policies.

What it does

Our application allows users to view cars in augmented reality. The user can view the car out in the real world or see how it would look in their own personal space. The app also allows the user to engage with a damaged car in order to learn more about different types of damages and how they can be covered by different insurance policies. Our application also allows the user can also view insurance information like collision coverage and roadside assistance.

How we built it

We built the frontend of this application using React Native and the backend using Python. We followed object oriented principles of design. The models were fabricated using Cinema 3D and Apple's Reality Composer software. We performed rigorous unit tests to prevent bugs to the best of our ability. In an attempt to keep our approach modern, we employed cloud compute and storage instances via Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Challenges we ran into

We ran into a few challenges while building our application. First, we had difficulty finding accurate 3D models of the cars. We also spent a lot of time making some 3D items and making sure that they acted the way we wanted them to. Second, we had difficulty getting the insurance information to display correctly. Lastly, we had difficulty getting the augmented reality experience to work correctly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of being able to create an immersive and interactive augmented reality experience. We are also proud of being able to display insurance information in the form of an interactive augmented reality experience.

What we learned

We learned how to use the Apple's Reality Composer. We also learned how to create 3D models and how to integrate them into an augmented reality experience.

What's next for c[AR]

In the future, we would like to add more cars to the application and add more insurance information. We would also like to add a feature that allows users to test drive the cars in augmented reality.