The Idea
The buzz of augmented reality on mobile devices started making waves around the summer of 2009. 3 months before that, our project was created.
The idea was to create a framework for overlaying information from a richly-populated set of layers onto the user’s screen, all based on location.
Thus Gnarus was born. It was created by a team at Carleton College from September 2009 through March 2010 as part of their senior comprehensive exercise.
The Pitch
A Landmark is anything with a name, a location, and significance to some individual. It is further defined by its membership within a Layer.
A Layer is any unifying theme that associates a set of Landmarks.
Gnarus is an open-source, extensible Augmented Reality iPhone Application that allows for the continuing development of a system of Landmarks and Layers on a geographical plane.
Here are some examples:
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The Food Layer contains Restaurants, Grocery Stores, Co-ops, and Street Vendors, with information about hours, prices, and menus.
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The Wikipedia Layer contains a landmark for every Geo-tagged Wikipedia Article.
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The Beautiful Views Layer contains perches and lookouts, with suggested times of day and year.
Some Layers (like the Wikipedia, Flickr, and Twitter layer) are populated with Landmarks from other servers, while our server provides access to user-created and modifiable layers (with user-created and modifiable landmarks). Thus, Gnarus has the capacity to mutate and adapt to the needs and desires of its users. Additionally, in that all content on our server is both produced and maintained by users, Gnarus provides the most universal and contemporary notions about a given place.
Knowledge is Good,
The Gnarus Team