Text spaces in Augmented Reality (AR)

A Short Video Tour of a Published Augmented Reality Book

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One of the challenges in discussing the different experiences that I encountered in researching AR was in describing what is known as the “immersive” effect that the technology creates. The idea of an immersive experience that goes beyond the limited example of a digital pop-up illustration is hard to evoke when describing pages in a book.

For reasons that are explored in my paper, it is actually easier to imagine of AR virtual elements responding to larger environmental features in a three-dimensional space rather than to printed page elements in a book.

For this reason, and to satisfy my own curiosity about the latest in augmented reality book publishing, I ordered author Robert Mash’s and illustrator Stuart Martin’s book Dinosaurs Alive!, which is published in the UK by Carlton books.

This video I made is basically a walk-through of the book. It tries to show how the books editorial, artwork and layout features are designed to respond to the inclusion of AR in the content. The reason that I chose this book was that it is clearly intended for older children, at least over 10 years old, and because it is very dense with information about its subject matter, a survey of dinosaurs and their rise from the earliest species to extinction.