Seymourpowell designs app to make Stirling the “world’s first” AR metropolis

The brand new Stirling XP app permits the Scottish metropolis of Stirling to grow to be “the primary totally Augmented Actuality metropolis on this planet” because of a venture by Stirling Council, BT and Seymourpowell.

Utilizing Google’s new Geospatial platform and making use of Stirling’s 2021 investments in fibre and 5G networks, the venture sees Stirling the primary metropolis to “deploy geospatial expertise in a ‘city-wide’ venture”, in response to Chris Doughty, head of immersive experiences at Seymourpowell.

The app seeks to make use of interactive data, graphics and 3D fashions – in addition to rewards and incentives – to “gamify” the historic metropolis as a way to enhance its tourism after a pandemic slow-down.

Whereas Stirling’s vacationer locations embrace the Nationwide Wallace Monuments and Stirling Fortress town centre “isn’t thought of a vacationer vacation spot in itself”, Doughty explains.

One facet of the venture is digital wayfinding, which affords an answer to the truth that a lot of town is a conservation space, “putting restrictions on bodily signage – each when it comes to the way it seems and the place it may be positioned”, Doughty says. By the app, “massive digital signposts” at key junctions will direct guests to a specific vacation spot, however “in contrast to Google maps or the like”, he provides, “these waypoints create a route that’s extra pleasurable and fascinating”.

The “Heads Up Show (HUD) mode”, will convey to life “hidden” tales within the structure, akin to “exhibiting you what the road you’re standing in seemed like 100 years in the past”, or reconstructing the “authentic Stirling Bridge from Wallace’s well-known battle website”.

Nonetheless, gamification may supply added incentives to discover town, in response to Seymourpowell.

“Guests who, for instance, climb the steps of the Nationwide Wallace Monument will likely be rewarded with a 3D mannequin of the landmark”, Doughty says. An unique view will grow to be a “digital memento”, Doughty provides.

Different gamified components embrace “a quest for digital wolves, lions and unicorns that are dotted across the metropolis” to create a “personalised coat of arms”, whereas rewards vary from social media filters – that includes struggle paint and conventional highland costume – to “detailed 3D fashions of key buildings and points of interest”, Doughty says.

Stirling Council invested £200,000 within the venture through funding from the Scottish Authorities’s Place Primarily based Funding Programme.

Along with boosting tourism, each council chief Chris Kane and Go Forth Stirling BID venture director Danielle McRorie-Smith spotlight the alternatives for native companies to make use of the app, which, in response to Seymourpowell, has a framework that’s designed to be added to.

“The numerous impartial and nationwide companies represented by the BID will profit from a brand new method of selling the experiences, items and providers they’ve to supply – whether or not that’s by the usage of interactive posters and paintings or giving guests the possibility to discover inside buildings with out ever leaving the footpath”, McRorie-Smith says.

She provides, “that is an thrilling initiative which actually faucets into the expectations of holiday makers – particularly these of the youthful technology who grew up with expertise”.

Doughty feedback on how the venture “firmly positions Stirring as a world-class digital vacation spot”, demonstrating “what is feasible when cutting-edge infrastructure suppliers, optimistic and forward-looking public our bodies and award-winning designers work collectively.”

Within the subsequent section of the app, VR headsets will enable these with restricted mobility to see the view from the Crown of the Nationwide Wallace Monument – solely accessible by 246 steep steps – to permit the venture to additionally “act as an exemplar of accessibility and inclusion”, Seymourpowell feedback.