Grant: Engage Plus Grants Program

AWE Company Ltd's (AWECO) mission is to ""enable people using mobile devices to interact with the world in ways that are imaginative, informative, and intelligent"". Building on our previous successful NSERC Engage with AWECO we worked together to develop a technology solution for an outdoor augmented reality experience for the Fort York historical site. This project culminated in the development, testing and deployment of a mobile augmented reality solution that is capable of tracking the user's mobile tablet within a previously known area. The area is mapped prior to the experience during the design phase and during realtime operation the tablet identifies which region of interest the user is currently positioned using GPS coordinates, loads the appropriate submap of features and tracks the current display in this submap. Rendered geometry and animation can then be displayed on top of the video imagery to create the mixed reality experience. While AWECO has been completing this project, they see the potential to use the developed mixed reality technology in a new technology initiative to enable mixed reality experiences in the home. Tying the mixed reality experience to a television show being broadcast will allow AWECO to create innovative experiences that allow children to explore historical perspectives and facts in an interactive manner. Events in the TV show will be designed to interact with the users' mobile device. However, solutions are needed to ensure that the mixed reality solution can be adapted and scaled to uncontrolled environments. This is at the core of AWECO's current problem. They require a mixed reality solution that scales to uncontrolled environments that can besynchronized with a television broadcast. This is a novel application of augmented and mixed reality technology that can define a new class of interactive media with a Canadian SME and a Canadian University leading the way.