About

People draw inspiration from the world around them. Frame is a mobile application designed to allow users to record and share their inspirations and unique points of view about places and events through video, audio, and text.

Current “smart” devices allow users to record video, text and photos and share each of these with friends on their social networks. Augmented reality applications can superimpose layers of digital content onto the physical world. The Frame application leverages these technologies with the next generation of “smart” devices to create a dynamic virtual learning environment embedded in the physical world.

Experience the Frame augmented reality demo

Capture

Frame makes it easy to capture inspirational objects, places and events “in the moment” by allowing continuous recording in audio, video and images. The controls to start and stop recording, switch formats and begin a new recording are intuitively accessible from a single screen.

Each media recording contains metadata like GPS location, camera focal length and orientation. This information is used to create a virtual tag that marks the exact location. Frame’s search and browse functionality locates virtual tags in the user’s vicinity.

Browse

Places and objects that have been tagged as inspirations by other people can be discovered with Frame. Users can find the location of virtual tags by searching a map or typing in keywords. Frame also detects virtual tags in the environment and notifies the user of nearby tags. Frame guides the user from their current location to the virtual tag by overlaying GPS-like navigational information on live video.

Augmented reality technology is used to show the location of virtual tags. Information like user name, rating and number of comments is overlaid on live video.

Prototypes

Several rounds of prototyping were conducted, from rough paper prototypes to high fidelity Adobe Flash Catalyst prototypes. This helped determine the final application functionality and interface.

High school students were interviewed about and demoed prototypes of Frame. Their input helped fine-tune the user experience and inform the final interaction elements.

Augmented Reality Demo

A high fidelity prototype of the Frame's browse functionality was created using Adobe Flash Catalyst and Flartoolkit. This prototype simulates the discovery of virtual tags.

Experience the AR demo //

A web cam is necessary to view the demo

1. Print out the AR Marker which represents a tagged object or place
2. Click here to start the Frame AR Demo (be patient - it may take a while to load)
3. Hold up the printed marker to your web cam
4. The virtual tags should now appear - click on a tag to view the information contained within