Titan Campus AR

Inspiration

Our inspiration draws from the evolving landscape of edge computing via Augmented Reality (AR) and its potential to revolutionize traditional educational settings and community in college and university campuses. We have recognized that our university campus map and many other campuses lack dynamic interactions and an engaging, informative, and accessible environment for everyone.

What it does

Titan Campus AR offers an augmented reality experience that transforms the way users interact with the campus environment. It integrates interactive mapping, real-time navigation, and information retrieval (e.g., departments & programs, classrooms) of buildings/locations into a mobile AR interface.

How we built it

• Graphics Design: Our app theme accurately aligns with what our university (Cal State Fullerton) would release. The interface is styled according to the official university colors and uses the font family that is representative of the official font and typography guidelines of the university as well.

• Development & Implementation: Our app is developed with Unity, leveraging its ARFoundation and ARSubsystems. The app UI is crafted with Unity's UI toolkit. Our app is also built with Google's ARCore Extensions and integrated with the Google Geospatial API. The app is currently deployed on Android devices ONLY.

Challenges we ran into

It was our first experience integrating external APIs within Unity to make an AR application. Initially, we initially faced difficulties in understanding and implementing external APIs, such as Google Cloud Services and ARCore APIs within Unity. There is a major challenge that we ran into in navigation based on external APIs. Specifically, testing the navigation feature revealed problems with the generated navigation route that was being sent to the application. The Google Directions API often returned navigation directions that were inefficient and not representative of a realistic path between two points ON CAMPUS. The navigation would include unnecessary turns around the target destination and lead to side paths around the buildings instead of pointing users to the front of the building. Presumably, the internal algorithm used by Google to generate navigation routes is not optimized for university campuses and other locations that are not immediately available to the public.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

1. The app icon is designed and created.
2. The 3D object Tuffy (Mascot of Cal State Fullerton) is designed and fully animated.
3. The primary AR-powered features of interactive campus maps, campus navigation, and information retrieval (e.g., departments & programs, classrooms) of buildings/locations are implemented in full for our campus.

What we learned

Throughout this project, we gained valuable experience in AR development, particularly with Unity, Google Cloud Services, Geospatial API, ARCore, Graphics software for graphics design and animation, and Adobe Premier for making demo videos. Moreover, we have also learned skills in teamwork.

What's next for Titan Campus AR

There are additional features that can improve the user experience. For example,

1. Incorporating a feature that displays the routing path before navigation begins is another upcoming enhancement for the app. This feature will allow users to preview their entire route in advance, providing a clear visual representation of the path they will take.
   
2. The inclusion of AR landmark objects like street signs and building name markers. These augmented reality elements will be placed within the campus environment during the navigation, users will be able to interact with these AR landmarks to learn more about their surroundings.
3. Acknowledging the current limitation of Google Geospatial API in providing highly accurate offroad navigation within campus environments, our team will be committed to finding ways to fine-tune this aspect of Titan Campus AR.
   

Built With

• arcore
• arfoundation
• arsubsystems
• geospatial
• googlecloudservice
• unity