Tag Archives: Augmented Reality

Apr 22, 2011

Philly Tech Week and Us

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard

In the midst of a busy spring conference schedule, we’re participating in an exciting series of events here in Philadelphia, all part of the first-annual Philly Tech Week.  A week-long celebration of technology and innovation in Philadelphia, Philly Tech Week intends to grow the impact of our innovative region through events focused on technology, collaboration and improving Philadelphia.

While Philly might still appear to some as the city of the cheesesteak and the Mummers — which it is — the city has also seen the emergence of  an extremely vibrant tech community over the past several years.  When Azavea started operating 10 years ago, it was challenging to find peers with whom to exchange ideas, hang out or build stuff.  Today, Philly’s tech community includes groups like Ignite Philly, Technically Philly, Philly .Net, Philly NetSquared, Refresh Philly, Breadboard, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Temple University Center for Design and Innovation, University City Science Center, Make: Philly, the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy at the University of the Arts, TEDxPhilly, Code for America: The Philadelphia Project … I am sure we’re forgetting some.  The energy is palpable, and it feels good to be a part of it! We’ve organized a few tech get-togethers in our office, two Hackathons, and have participated in many of the events organized by these great groups.

So when we heard that the good folks at Technically Philly were organizing Philly Tech Week (next week: April 25-29), we knew we wanted to be part of it.  There’s a lot going on, but here’re the events in which we’ll be participating:

OpenDataPhilly Rollout – April 25, noon-1pm at WHYY
For the past few months, we’ve been talking with our good friend Roz Duffy, the City of Philadelphia’s Open Access Philly task force , Technically Philly and WHYY about creating a Philadelphia-centric open data portal.  Philly Tech Week seemed like a perfect opportunity to roll it out.  We’ll be rolling out OpenDataPhilly –- the first online catalog of Philadelphia-centric datasets — at noon on Monday, April 25 at WHYY. For more information about the project, read our newsletter article.

To attend the launch event, visit http://opendataphilly.org/ . You can also follow us on Twitter @opendataphilly

Panelists on Augmented Reality Check: Seeing the Future Now – April 26, 6pm at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Deb Boyer and Josh Marcus will be part of a panel of artists and software developers  discussing the intersection of art, technology, and science and the use of augmented reality. We will discuss the development process of our NEH-funded Augmented Reality by PhillyHistory application. This event is organized by Breadboard, in conjunction with the Philadelphia Science Festival, Philly Tech Week, and Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.  More information about the panel is here.

Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise Conference – April 27-28, 8am at the Sheraton Old City
Five of our colleagues will attend this conference for developers, architects, and IT executives.  Subjects as expansive and intricate as emerging technology and Open Source will be discussed by industry experts who will provide up-to-the-minute insight.  For more info and to register, visit the conference site.

PhillyTreeMap Rollout – April 29, noon at WHYY
As part of Philly Tech Week’s Green Tech Week Showcase event, we will launch PhillyTreeMap, a wiki-style, web-based geography-enabled urban tree inventory for the city.  The application is a joint project between the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the City of Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and Azavea.  For more information about PhillyTreeMap, read our newsletter article.

PhillyTreeMap will be available as of Friday, April 29 at http://www.phillytreemap.org/

BarCamp News Innovation Philadelphia Open Gov Hackathon – April 30, 9am-5pm at Temple University, Annenberg Hall
One of our staff will be a judge at this all-day hacking event presented by Tropo. The hackathon will bring together software developers, designers, civic coders and journalists for a one-day sprint to develop useful applications utilizing data from OpenDataPhilly. Find out the details, here.

We hope to see you at one of the events.  Enjoy Philly Tech Week!

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Apr 18, 2011

Conference Wrap-Up: Museums and the Web 2011

By Deb Boyer

It’s been a week since the end of Museums and the Web 2011, and we’re still talking about the conference. We had a great time meeting interesting people from around the world and learning about some really creative and innovative museum technology projects.

Perhaps one of the most enjoyable events for us came before the main conference even started. On Tuesday, April 5, we hosted a walking tour of several Philadelphia neighborhoods followed by a cocktail reception at the Azavea offices. About twenty early arrivals for the conference braved the cold and wind to join me for a combined traditional walking tour and smartphone/augmented reality (AR) tour through the Center City, Chinatown, and Callowhill neighborhoods.

With smartphones in hand, we stopped at 13th and Market to talk about the development of Center City department stores such as Wanamaker’s and Gimbels. We then headed to City Hall to discuss architecture and William Penn’s plan for Philadelphia before walking over to 13th and Arch (urban development and row house architecture), 12th and Arch (railroads and Reading Terminal Market), 10th and Arch (immigration and cultural organizations), and several other stops. At each stop, we discussed several topics connected to Philadelphia history, looked at a binder of printed images, and found historic images from PhillyHistory.org via the augmented reality application.

We had fun experimenting with the PhillyHistory.org augmented reality application at a stop in the City Hall courtyard.

While playing with the new PhillyHistory.org AR application was fun by itself, I think the tour emphasized how mobile technology can help provide access to information and images that might not be covered on a traditional walking tour. We visited several neighborhoods that are broadly connected to very different components of Philadelphia’s history (commercial development, immigration, residential architecture, industrial change, etc). Rather than being dependent upon a prepared script focusing on only a single theme, tour attendees could use their phones to access historic images and make comparisons between the past photos and the present landscape at their own pace. There are obviously some drawbacks – photos aren’t as plentiful for certain areas, photos can’t answer questions like a tour guide can, cold weather severely limits your desire to take your hands out of your pockets to use a phone – but I think AR and mobile technology in general is certainly worth investigating for the ability to provide new ways for us to interact with history.

After a couple hours in the cold, we were all excited to head to Azavea for warmth, wine, beer, and some delicious food. Thanks to everyone who stopped by for the reception! It was fun to hear about the many projects going on at everyone’s institutions. My Azavea colleagues also had a great time and remarked on how friendly everyone was.

For the rest of the conference, we spent our time at Booth #23 in the exhibit hall and attending various sessions and demonstrations. I particularly enjoyed the Thursday morning panel session on augmented reality. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a bit interested in the topic! We had some excellent conversations with people who came to visit our booth and finished off the conference by presenting on the PhillyHistory.org augmented reality application as part of the Mobile Parade session on Saturday. The full paper is available here.

This was my second Museums and the Web, and it was another great conference filled with interesting people and exciting ideas. I’m glad that I could be part of the group, and I’m looking forward to going through my notes and checking out many new projects, papers, and websites!

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Apr 01, 2011

Preparing for Museums and the Web 2011

By Deb Boyer

Next week is a busy time here at Azavea. The annual Museums and the Web conference is in town, and we’re excited to be part of the festivities! An international gathering of those interested in web-based museum technology, we’ve attended Museums and the Web for the last few years and really enjoyed the chance to meet a diverse group of people excited about discussing new innovations in cultural institutions.

Erik and Deb experiment with the new PhillyHistory.org augmented reality application.

On Tuesday, April 5, I’ll be leading a walking tour of various local history sites around the Center City, Chinatown, and Callowhill neighborhoods. With my public history background, few things make me happier than a walking tour! In addition to an intro to Philly’s history, we’ll be looking at how images from PhillyHistory.org, the website of historic photos that Azavea built for the Philadelphia Department of Records, can help tell the history of a neighborhood. Tour attendees will be able to view images from the site via the PhillyHistory.org smart phone web application and will even have access to a sneak peek of the new Augmented Reality by PhillyHistory.org application.

Where exactly will we be stopping? Here’s a hint at a few of the spots.

  • City Hall – You can’t walk around Center City without being aware of City Hall. Architecture, government, Penn’s plan – the building brings up so many topics connected to the city’s history. Besides, there’s a great new exhibit up featuring images from PhillyHistory.org!
  • 10th and Arch – This intersection has a fantastic history. From the Chinese arch today to a 1919 photo with a sign declaring that “Food Will Win the War,” this corner’s history can help spark discussion on how neighborhoods in Philadelphia grow, change, and adapt over time.
  • 11th and  Wood – The Callowhill neighborhood provides great insights into Philadelphia’s industrial, residential, and transportation heritage. The Reading Viaduct, 19th century workers’ rowhomes, and architecturally interesting industrial buildings illustrate a few of the many stories connected to Philadelphia’s status as the Workshop of the World.

After the tour, we’ll be hosting a cocktail reception at Azavea to help kick off the conference. We’re looking forward to the chance to meet people active in the field, get their feedback about the AR app, and acquaint them with some of our humanities work.

Throughout the conference, I’ll be attending sessions and we’ll be exhibiting some of our projects in the conference exhibit and demonstration hall.  On Saturday, we’re excited to be part of a mobile parade session where we’ll talk about “Implementing Mobile Augmented Reality Applications for Cultural Institutions,” and specifically our findings from creating the PhillyHistory.org augmented reality application.

If you happen to be at Museums and the Web, stop by Booth #23 and say hello. We’ll be talking about our work in the humanities and perhaps demoing the new PhillyHistory.org augmented reality application. Should be a fun and busy week!

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Mar 09, 2011

Upcoming Conference Sessions on Augmented Reality

By Deb Boyer

One of my favorite aspects of working on PhillyHistory.org and the forthcoming augmented reality application is talking to other people about the projects. As a public history enthusiast, I love the chance to get feedback on the website and learn how users interact with the historic photos. Several of the features the Department of Records implemented on PhillyHistory.org have come at the request of visitors to the website, and we’re always eager to hear more suggestions.

Lucky for me, I’ll be attending several conferences in the next couple months, providing a chance to hear what you think about the new Augmented Reality by PhillyHistory.org application, Philadelphia history, digital history projects, and GIS and the humanities in general. Let me know if you’ll be at any of these events!


SXSW Interactive, Austin, TX – “Innovating & Developing with Libraries, Archives & Museums” – March 15 at 9:30am
Panel presentation with Jon Voss (LookBackMaps), Danielle Plumer (Texas State Library and Archives Commission), Michael Edson (Smithsonian Institution). I’ll be speaking on how the PhillyHistory.org team has addressed scaling, display, linking, and collaboration issues for the PhillyHistory.org database, mobile application, and augmented reality project and how public access and linked data initiatives have influenced the development of the website.


Visual Resources Association and the Art Libraries Society of North America (VRA + ARLIS/NA), Minneapolis, MN – “From Filing Cabinet to iPhone: How Collaboration and Technology can Introduce Photo Collections to New Audiences” – March 26 at 8:30am
A case study session on several image related projects. I’ll be speaking on how collaborative efforts, combined with digital initiatives, can bring new life to old photos.


Museums and the Web, Philadelphia, PA – “Implementing Mobile Augmented Reality Applications for Cultural Institutions” – April 9 at 11am
A mobile parade session highlighting mobile projects developed by cultural institutions in 2010. I’ll be speaking on the process of creating the PhillyHistory.org augmented reality application and how our research findings could be applied to other institutions.

As part of the Museums and the Web conference, Azavea will also be hosting a historic walking tour of Philadelphia followed by a cocktail reception at our offices.

Museums and the Web – “Walking Tour of Historic Philadelphia” – April 5 at 4pm
The walking tour will showcase historic locations in downtown Philadelphia, specifically in the Center City, Chinatown, and Callowhill neighborhoods, and give conference attendees an opportunity to use the PhillyHistory mobile and augmented reality applications. A cocktail reception at Azavea’s offices after the tour gives us a chance to hear everyone’s feedback about the app and for guests to get acquainted with some other amazing projects on which we have worked in the humanities.

“Augmented Reality Check: Seeing the Future Now,” Philadelphia, PA – April 26 at 6pm
My colleague Josh Marcus and I will be part of a panel of artists and software developers (and me who is neither!) discussing the intersection of art, technology, and science and the use of augmented reality. This event is organized by Breadboard, in conjunction with the Philadelphia Science Festival, Philly Tech Week, and Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.

If you’re attending any of these conferences or will be visiting Philadelphia and want to talk GIS and digital humanities, let us know!

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Mar 07, 2011

Augmented Reality Update: Selecting Images

By Deb Boyer

How do you choose 500 photos out of 93,000? And then how do you whittle down those 500 images to a mere 20? That was the conundrum the PhillyHistory.org team faced as they began the process of selecting images for the PhillyHistory.org augmented reality application. While the application will include the majority of the geocoded images found in PhillyHistory.org, we’ve also selected 500 images for a bit of special attention. Those 500 will be “pinned” or more accurately located in 3-D space so that the historic image appears to align with the current landscape. Out of those 500, we also selected twenty images for which we provided extended, researched descriptions.

To read more about the photo selection process, check out the following entries on the PhillyHistory.org blog.

Something New in Your Neighborhood: Augmented Reality

Selecting Images for Augmented Reality

And in case you’re curious what all of this might look like….

Memorial Hall in 1876 and 2010

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Feb 08, 2011

Augmented Reality in Cultural Institutions

By Deb Boyer

If you visit Azavea these days, there’s a good possibility you might notice people wandering around near the windows holding up their smartphones or bundling up to head outside and test the new mobile augmented reality (AR) application for PhillyHistory.org. Erik and Josh, the developers working on the prototype application, are hard at work researching and experimenting with the best ways to combine historic photographs and mobile technology to create a great AR experience.

The Philadelphia Department of Records, however, is certainly not the first cultural institution to investigate the use of augmented reality as an educational and access tool. Within the last three years, several interesting projects around the world have provided new and innovative ways for the public to view the collections of various museums and cultural organizations. While you’re waiting for the PhillyHistory.org AR app, you may want to check out some of these great augmented reality applications. Some of the projects require you to be in a specific location, but others can be accessed anywhere.

Augmented Reality for Interpretive and Experiential Learning (ARIEL), Philadelphia – A group of organizations working on “fixed-station exhibit devices with augmented and virtual reality interfaces.”

Augsburg Display Cabinet, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles - Using a printed marker and a web cam, users can manipulate and more closely view a digital model of the cabinet.

Berlin Wall, Berlin –  A layer in Layar that enables users to view a recreation of the Berlin Wall.

Gene Becker and Adriano Farano, San Francisco - Experimenting with historic photographs and augmented reality in San Francisco.

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney - Enables users to view historic photographs of Sydney, Australia.

Streetmuseum, Museum of London, London – Historic photographs of London available as overlays on the current landscape.

The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh – View information and images of locations in Pittsburgh and New York connected to Warhol’s life and work.

Urban Augmented Reality (UAR), Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam - An architecture focused application that provides images of past buildings, designs that were never built, and artist’s impressions of the future built environment.

With the rapid pace of AR development, I’m sure that I’ve missed a few projects. Leave a comment if you know of other great AR work going on in cultural institutions!

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Feb 01, 2011

An NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant to Enable PhillyHistory.org to Experiment with Augmented Reality

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard

We’ve been announcing loud and clear that we are adding augmented reality capabilities to PhillyHistory.org, a web application we built for the Philadelphia Department of Records that enables the geographic search and management of tens of thousands of historic photos and maps.

Currently, PhillyHistory users are able to search the website from their smart phones and compare the historic images from PhillyHistory.org with the location where they are standing.  If they are not standing in the street, they can also access  contemporary 360-degree street level views on PhillyHistory.org,  thanks to the system’s integration with Google Street View and Google Earth, to see what a location looks like today.  However, augmented reality technology is different in the sense that it enables users to access additional information about the world around them in relation to their location as they point their smart phone directly at a building or street.

Why are we involved in this?

Research.  While we hear and have read about unbelievably exciting projects using augmented reality, like the app released a few months ago by the Museum of London, augmented reality technology is still in its infancy and not much has been written about what is and is not possible.  The Philadelphia Department of Records was awarded an NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant to research both the creation of historic photographs as overlays and how augmented reality scales with a very large database of assets. Remember, PhillyHistory.org currently holds over 93,000 assets (and is still growing)!

The Department of Records will initially provide point-and-view access to a subset of approximately 500 historic photographs of selected sites around the city (thanks to Deb Boyer and our great PhillyHistory interns*) for a prototype application we are building as part of our research. Users will be able to automatically access and view the historic photographs by simply pointing a smart phone at the contemporary site and selecting an available image.  The prototype application will focus on images from several neighborhoods in the downtown area although images from other neighborhoods will also be used in order to evaluate issues such as tree cover, building height and other sources for multi-path error that may affect the accuracy of the augmented reality display.  In addition to the 500 photographs, the project team will work with an advisory committee, three of whom are the co-editors of the planned Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, to provide additional interpretive information for up to 20 of the 500 sites.

Josh Marcus who is working with Erik Osheim on the prototype application is already recording his progress in a Developer Journal on our Labs blog, but we are also planning to publish a white paper through NEH later this year to summarize our findings, which we will make available for free.  The white paper will outline our research into various methods for creating an augmented reality application as well as the implementation process in both iPhone and Android platforms.  We hope our conclusions on the successes and challenges will prove useful to other organizations considering implementation of augmented reality applications.

* Read captivating blogs written by Hillary Kativa, Timothy Horning, Leslie O’Neill, and Deb on PhillyHistory.org’s blog.  Great thanks go to our guest PhillyHistory bloggers as well: Steve Ujifusa, Ron Hoess, Shawn Evans, Christopher Dougherty, Harry Boonin, Ron Avery, and others.

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