BBC – Geolocated AR Trails

The Client

BBC Connected Studio

The Brief

To create a bilingual, geolocated AR visitor app with an eclectic mix of visitor experiences to help BBC Connected Studio explore how mobile phone based augmented reality (AR) can be used to enhance public events and to understand how different forms of content can best be layered onto a physical location.

The National Eisteddfod 2018 was held in Cardiff Bay with a ‘no-fences’ approach for the first time; allowing both visitors to the event and casual passers-by to wander around a spread-out festival site encompassing multiple venues.
BBC Connected Studio (CS) wanted to use this event as an opportunity to create a pilot public visitor app (IOS and Android) to explore how mobile phone based augmented reality (AR) can be used to enhance the event; opening it up to a wider audience.

We created AR y Maes, a bilingual, geolocated AR app with downloadable content bundles to enable 40 pieces of AR content to be unlocked as visitors explored the festival site.

Multiple project partners created video content (180o scenes, green-screen characters and standard video) which we curated, optimised and incorporated into suitable themed trails. In addition, we created 3D animated assets together with a children’s AR collectable game.

AR content was triggered via image tracked and markerless AR at sites all over the festival area. Users could choose an animated druid to guide them around a 3D GPS map to AR zones where they could trigger and explore AR content.

We created a content management system to allow content to be moved or removed easily from the app, and to allow highlights videos to be updated daily.

The app incorporated analytics to enable CS to gain a better understanding of how users interact and engage with AR content.