OceanAR

OceanAR is the project I developed for my Advanced Spatial Representations Class. The task was to incorporate the software and critical/creative thinking skills we had learned over the semester. 

I decided that I wanted to create Augmented Reality jewelry with the premise of merging fashion design and technology to encourage environmental engagement. The bracelet  was modeled by me in AutoCAD, then 3D printed using the LulzBot TAZ 5  printer, and later hand-painted with the purpose of creating a design that was recognizable as a target for the AR software. 

For the AR development, I first modeled the ocean creatures in Maya and animated them before transferring assets over to Unity. Using Vuforia in Unity, I added AR functionality by making the 3D printed bracelet a target for the Maya models, and made tweaks in MonoDevelop to increase the interactivity of the piece and allow the creatures to respond to their environment.

The time-frame for this project  was two weeks, and I went from designing early sketches of what the jewelry and AR environment would look like, to painting the jewelry and creating colorful skins for the models. I wanted this project to raise awareness of plastic straws as a large factor of ocean pollution, and how their over-consumption and erroneous disposal harms ocean ecosystems.