Inspiration
We were inspired by the community around two other game, Geo-Guesser and Geo-Caching. We found a thriving community that were passionate about guessing world locations using very few hints and exploring those locations in person. Our team realized that we could bring a new angle into this sort of service with our AR solution.
What it does
GeoSplat provides users with a complete set of location challenges located all around the city. Players would be given an image of the location, a rough geo-location and a few hints to help them find it. Now it's up to them to test their orientation skills and see if they know their city as well as they think they do. The location could be one of a famous statue, a museum or a park. When they get there, the player must point their phone and the app will tell them to use Augmented Reality if they found the right location or not.
How we built it
We used Android Studio to build all the UI for the app. ARCore technology is used to scan the location of interest and take pictures of it. We then use Google Cloud to host anchors and compare them later to the user scans to check if they found the right location.
Challenges we ran into
We are very new to mobile development, so trying to learn how to use Android Studio in one night was very challenging. On top of that, we had to dive head first into the world of AR, something we have never used or experimented first. We were not sure of the capabilities of the technology, nor if our hardware would be strong enough for our purposes. Thankfully, after a long sleepless night we managed to overcome these challenges and come out the other side with a working product.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're very proud to have managed to tweak the AR calibration so that the scanning of locations would not be a lengthy process for the user, while still retaining an acceptable amount of precision. We're also very happy with the state of our UI, which is readable and intuitive.
What we learned
Over the course of this project, we have learned a lot about the world of Augmented Reality and geo-location tracking. We witnessed first hand how far this technology has come and now realize the potential it has. We also learned some hard lessons in project planning, especially when unexpected problems arise last minute.
What's next for GeoSplat
We would really want to take our solution to the next level. We wish to fully develop this tech and provide a robust solution for players and businesses alike.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.