Geospatial Wildlife Safari
A downloadable game for Android
Inspired by Augmented Reality game like Pokemon Go, this is a geospatial game to discover native animals hiding in our environment. For this demo, 3D models of native animals from Central Florida region appear when entering geo-fenced areas such as Paynes Prairie National Park, Florida Museum of Natural History, UF Bat Conservatory, and various areas of University of Florida campus such as lakes and “The Swamp” Gators Football stadium.
The game encourages exploration of the outdoors and serves as a guide while out on the nature trails. Players can see GPS-located 3D AR experiences in nature such as alligators, bats, butterflies, buffalo, manatees, wild boars and horses in their native habitats. In this game demo, there are 16 different species of animals to discover out in the field. For those not in the game’s location, the https://floridamon.com website offers 3D model viewer to demo the Augmented Reality animals. The game was created in Unity using AR Core extension Google Geospatial Creator with Cesium for Google Map Tiles API and Niantic Lightship used for occlusion and segmentation. The animated 3D models were purchased from Unity Asset Store, and over 200 3D models were generated with Luma AI text-to-NERF.
Note: This project was developed forNiantic Lightship Real-world AR Challenge & Google Geospatial Augmented Reality Challenge for educational purposes, and is not officially endorsed by the University of Florida.
Google Geospatial AR Challenge trailer (3 min)
Download
Install instructions
Visit the provided Google Drive Link on your android mobile device. Download the APK file to your device. Install the App:
Open the downloaded APK file. Your device may ask for permissions to install from unknown sources; please allow this to proceed. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation. Open the App:
Once installed, open 'Geospatial Florida Wildlife' from your device's app drawer. Exploring in AR:
The app uses GPS to provide location-based AR experiences. Travel to the designated areas in Florida, such as Paynes Prairie National Park or the University of Florida campus. Once in a geo-fenced area, the app will automatically display the native animals in 3D AR around you. Interacting with Animals:
Walk around to explore different species. The app will show animals like alligators, bats, and butterflies in their natural habitats. Using the Website (floridamon.com) Visit the Website:
Open your web browser and go to floridamon.com. Viewing 3D Models:
On the website, you'll see a gallery of animals. Click on any animal to view its 3D model. AR Experience at Home:
Click the 'AR' button to launch the AR experience. This will open your camera. Point your camera where you'd like the animal to appear. The animal’s 3D model will appear in your room or chosen environment. Interacting with the Model:
You can walk around to see the model from different angles. Use pinch gestures to resize or rotate the model.
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