Augmented Reality

3D data visualizations can be awkward to interact with on a 2D screen. Augmented reality can be a powerful way to manipulate and explore 3D visualizations, and LIVE environments will feature the capability to show select visuals as interactive AR models.

Beyond the Screen

1st-ever AR figure in Journal
AR export from glue

The astronomers behind MilkyWay3D.org (LIVE-Astro's demonstration project) published the 1st-ever augmented reality figure, exported from glue to Delightex's CoSpaces, in 2021.  

The video above shows how the (free) CoSpaces app allows smartphone users to see the exported data either "mixed" with the real 3D world, or attached to the surface of a MERGE cube.  Ongoing studies, funded by NSF, show that scientists are very engaged by this new way to interact with three-dimensional data.  

Learn more about the Bialy et al. 2021 Astrophysicsl Journal Letter that presented this first AR figure, and the tech, here.  To try out the AR figure, you can scan the AR codes below.

What's NEXT?
Interactive AR in your browser!

Thanks to significant investment from the commercial sector, AR in web browsers is becoming more and more capable.  The video above shows a 2024 demo from developers at Widgetti, who used Solara, a planned web-based framework for LIVE, to demonstrate the power of glue+Solara+AR. 
The initial stages of the video above simply show a quick set up of some test data in glue-Solara, then the MDI interface in Solara allowing a tear-off window, then moving that window to a phone, and then finally demonstrating how that same view looks on a Quest 3 headset.