Department technicians Gerri McEwen (Earth Science) and Devin Ayotte (Engineering) worked with VIU Carpentry and a Women In Trades Training (WITT) cohort to build a novel earth science and civil engineering visualization tool this fall.
The Augmented Reality (AR) sandbox, developed at the University of California (Davis) Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences, is an earth science visualization system that uses open-source imaging software to project a contour map onto a bed of sand. An overhead depth camera reads the height of the sand while a computer continuously updates the map, allowing users to create colourful 3D topographical maps including bodies of water, precipitation and real-time flood events. McEwen and Ayotte hope that this project can be used as a powerful instructional tool in geology, hydrology and civil engineering, as well as helping to attract prospective students to careers in earth science and engineering.
Construction and testing of the sandbox began over the summer and wrapped up shortly before Discoverfest on October 21st where the device was a popular addition to the Science Mall exhibition in Nanaimo’s upper campus area. In the coming months the sandbox will be housed between the Earth Science department (in building 470) and various locations around campus. Check in with the Physics, Engineering & Astronomy Twitter page for the latest location!
The project was generously supported by donations in time and material from Carpentry and funded by VIU’s office of Scholarship, Research and Creative Activity.