gARden Design Buddy

Inspiration

Our inspiration for gARden Design Buddy sprang from a simple desire to blend nature with technology. As avid gardeners and tech enthusiasts, we saw a unique opportunity to leverage the immersive capabilities of augmented reality to help users visualize and design their gardens effortlessly. The idea was to create a tool that would make garden planning accessible, engaging, and fun, allowing even those with limited physical space to unleash their creativity in designing virtual landscapes.

What We Learned

Throughout the development of gARden Design Buddy, we deepened our understanding of AR technology, particularly in the context of spatial computing and user interactions in mixed reality. We learned to implement and fine-tune the passthrough feature from the Oculus MR SDK, which was crucial for blending virtual objects with the real world. The project also enhanced our skills in using raycasts for object placement and interaction within a three-dimensional space.

How We Built It

We built gARden Design Buddy using the Oculus Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 3 platforms. Key components of our development included:

Oculus MR SDK: Utilized for integrating real-world elements with high-fidelity AR experiences. Raycasts: Enabled precise placement and manipulation of virtual objects in the user's real environment. Spatial Anchors: Initially planned to allow users to save their garden designs directly on their device, although we had to disable this feature in the final version due to technical challenges.

Challenges Faced

One of the significant challenges we faced was storage of spatial anchors on the device and loading them back into the environment.

Future Plans

Looking forward, we aim to introduce multi-user functionality to allow family and friends to collaborate on garden designs in real-time. We also plan to revisit and refine the spatial anchors feature, ensuring users can save and revisit their designs seamlessly.