Findings and Insights

We have chosen two paintings- ‘Golconda’ by Rene Magritte and ‘Relativity’ by M.C Escher. The painting "Golconda" reflects a person within society. Although most of the people make only a mass mortifying the individual, each of us has its own individuality. ‘Relativity’ is interesting by the use of three point perspective-Three vanishing points to form a triangle.

Both artists are known for the visually impossible images they create. Since we want to create an unusual experience of AR technology, we want to play with illusion and dimension. And these paintings would be suitable because they are famous for playing with space. Making use of the endless boundaries of a simulation, it can help us transform 2D to 3D, hopefully users can immerse themselves in the setting of the painting we simulated. so we did our best to recreate everything from the paintings while adding on our personal interpretation.

Some more content.

Design Decisions

We have chosen to model out fractured elements that are not following the law of gravity and the logic of the eyes. The AR paintings we have chosen have a similar palette to the original artwork to better recreate the space. The architecture in Golconda AR is split open like boxes and different spaces exist in one 3D model. The man floating turns out unexpectedly to be 2D images on the buildings when users walk through the AR. Relativity AR also contains elements from different point of perspective that makes users question reality.

Challenges

We encountered many challenges, the main challenge was technical issues. This is our first time launching an AR that requires us to control the placing, sensitivity of movement, rotation and scaling in order to give the most ‘surreal’ experience. Hence there are lots of testing out on the phone before publishing the final AR filter. Since we want the users to actually be inside the middle of the model when they open the AR filter, we have to consider many aspects, from the scaling to the positioning of the model relative to the plane tracker.

Also, we have to compromise with the limitation from our tools as our project goes along. Our final outcome was quite far off from what we initially planned on doing, due to having too much to incorporate into a single file. We were also unsure of the requirements of transferring files between softwares, so our models came out wonky at times.Even so, we were only able to discover problems after trying it out on Meta Spark AR. It was a tiring cycle - having to edit and export the files through different softwares over and over.

We resolve the problems by adjusting to limitations and looking for alternative ways.

Our first models

Quite different from our final outcomes because we have to compromise to the limitation of our knowledge of 3D modelling and the restriction of file size. However even though some parts do not work out as we hoped, but there are unexpected outcomes along the way, such as the disrupted vertex on the houses which is unique. The moire pattern on the stairs are made accidentally on Spark AR and turn out to be most surreal compared to texture explored.

Positioning Our Model

We have to consider the distance of the viewer and the model, so has to try out and adjust multiple times to achieve the greatest result.

We found out we can actually place viewers inside of our model and allow them to pass through the modelled object.This is important to our project because we want viewer to walk around the space as if Magritte's house and Escher's stairs really exist next to us. Users cannot scale the models. Scaling is not suitable for our AR because it enhance a feeling that these spaces just only exist in our phone screen.