Augustus
An Augmented Promenade in Medieval Paris
- Team / Mete Kutlu & Theuns Botha
- Location / Paris
- Period / Ongoing
- Partners / Comet Lab, AUSser Laboratory, Éditions La commune
Augustus is a research project for the development of a mobile app that offers an “augmented promenade” along the life-size virtual reconstruction of the Wall of Philippe Augustus in Paris. The app lets the users visualize in augmented reality the medieval wall, of which only a few fragments are left in the dense urban fabric of the city. A hybrid urban space is formed by resuscitating and superposing in 3D fragments of medieval Paris over the contemporary urban space. The app transforms the screen of the phone into a “magical” window opening into a trans-temporal urban space where two different temporalities are intertwined. It proposes an urban experience which takes places in a threshold between past and present, between the virtual and physical realms.
Life-size virtual reconstruction of the Montgomery Tower seen in augmented reality
Augustus Homepage
Tour Montgomery displayed in augmented reality on an iPad
Cybernetic Urban Experience
Augustus is an experimental project which investigates in practice the theory of the cyborg-inhabitant suggested by William Mitchel at MIT and by Antoin Picon at Harvard. As a cybernetic organism which is half human and half machine, the figure of cyborg synthesizes our increasing dependency on digital technologies in our daily lives. The Augustus app is a tool which lets us explore the qualities of the emerging cybernetic urban experience. The project seeks to study the physiological and physical effects of a long-term experience in augmented reality on the contemporary inhabitant, as well as the paradigm shift that augmented reality induces in the process of architectural design.
Tour Montgomery in AR
Storyboard
GPS-based proximity notifications
Stop 1: Rue Clovis
Stop 3: Firestation
Stop 4: La Tournelle
Stop 5: Montgomery Tower
Stop 5: Montgomery Tower
Iconographic Research
Paris by Jean Fouquet, illumination from the manuscript of the Hours of Étienne Chevalier, around 1452, Metropolitan Museum of New York, 1975.1.2490
The Ile de la Cité seen from the West, illumination from the manuscript of a Book of Hours, circa 1440, Latin MS 164, folio 254v, John Rylands University Library, Manchester, England.
Siege of Avignon (118v), Siege of Melun (259r), Cession of Auxerre and Siege of Avalon (folio 262r), Les Grandes Chroniques de France, Royal MS 16 G IV, British Library, London.
Workflow
Workflow
Developing with ARKit
Importing assets inside an AR view
Importing assets inside an AR view
Anchoring 3D models to 3D object targets using ARKit Scanner
Creation of 3D anchors triggering AR experiences
3D Models
UV mapping of 3D models
Scene setup
Integrating interactive properties to scenes with Reality Composer
Survey in AR
Importing assets inside an AR view
Importing assets inside an AR view
Importing assets inside an AR view
Motion Tracking & Compositing
Importing assets inside an AR view
Importing assets inside an AR view
SDK Testing
Initial testing of different SDKs