The Carbon Landscape’s Next Generation Augmented Reality Experience
100 Years of History, Heritage and Wildlife at Your Fingertips
The Client
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The Carbon Landscape Partnership is a £3.2million project backed by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and was created to connect and restore ecosystems across 10,000 hectares of post-industrial land throughout Salford, Wigan and Warrington.
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The Task
Last year, the CLP approached AVimmerse with the task of creating something that would encourage more locals to engage with the wealth of wildlife, history and heritage this 30-mile landscape has to offer.
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“Everything is digital and gamified now. We wanted a way to reintroduce the physical, tangible, outdoor folky-fun to people’s lives. And to educate the younger members of our community who will be inheriting this landscape.”
A core element for everyone involved was accessibility. Both AVimmerse and the Carbon Landscape Partnership wanted to extend this magnificent wildlife experience to those who would normally struggle to get up-close and personal with it.
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“We wanted to build something that anyone could use - from their home, in the classroom, or along the many paths and trails within the Carbon Landscape.”
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The result was: The Carbon Landscape Augmented Reality experience. A pioneering tool which brings storytelling, digital learning, and community engagement together under one innovative application.
The CLAR App
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Partnering with one of the biggest names in Virtual Reality Art, AVimmerse used industry-leading game development platform, Unity, to build the CLAR app.
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This interactive app allows users to superimpose 10+ historical photos and vibrant 3D illustrations of 25+ animals, insects and plants from the Carbon Landscape into their immediate environment.
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Once selected from the on-screen horizontal fold, a voiceover artist brings users closer to each object by sharing interesting facts about their habitat, history and behaviour. Much of what users hear was written by locals who have known the landscape all their lives.
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“When people go out, people only get to see a tiny portion of their local wildlife, so we had this idea to create an Augmented Reality app where the animals popped out in front of them. Now users can experience our wildlife ‘on tap’, essentially.”
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CLAR also brings the colourful history of this 30-mile landscape to life with ten photographs, each depicting life in the Carbon Landscape from as far back as the 1800’s. Items include a harrowing photo of The Pit Brow Lasses (also known as ‘Bells of the Black’), who worked at the Wigan Junction Colliery in the 1920’s. And Richard - a miner who survived an explosion at Wigan’s Maypole Colliery in 1908 which killed 75 men and destroyed most of the Colliery machinery.
The Pit Brow Lasses ('Bells of the Black')
1968 Queen Garswood Hall Spoil Heaps
What The Client Had To Say...
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“When we approached Keith, we were very confused about what we could and couldn’t do with this emerging content technology, and we had been let down a few times by bigger companies we’d hired to help with previous projects.
Fortunately for us, Keith met all our needs with enthusiasm and great knowledge. He was very patient throughout the whole funding acquisition process, and supported us at every checkpoint.
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This CLAR app is our way of introducing wildlife to a whole generation of people who otherwise might not know what’s on their doorstep. It’s a way to excite and inspire families to get outdoors and explore together, which is a huge part of our mission.
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As far as the end result goes, we couldn’t have asked for more. 70+ people have been involved in the creation of this app and at the centre of it was Avimmerse. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Keith and his team.”
The Artist
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Named one of Base Reality’s top 25 women to watch in VR and described as ‘pushing the boundaries of creativity’ using the latest technologies by Huffington post, Rosie Summers is one of the biggest names in Virtual Reality Art. Her passion for nature made her the perfect fit for this project and as you can see for yourself, she’s done a fantastic job of depicting the dynamic variety of wildlife The Carbon Landscape has to offer.
