Augmented Reality View of AddressingHistory Now Available for iPhone, Android or Nokia Ovi Phone

We are extremely excited to let you know that you can now explore an “Augmented Reality” version of AddressingHistoryusing your iPhone or Android device. You can stand on a street in Edinburgh and see who used to live there!

How does it work?

The AddressingHistory layer works with the Layar App to compare information about your current location (from your phone) and the geo-referenced entries in AddressingHistory to work out which historical residents and businesses used to be located near where you are standing at that moment. These are displayed as “points of interest” – little icons that hover over the appropriate locations.

On your phone you will see these points of interest – historical people and places of business – overlaid on a live image from your camera. Moving the camera around lets you see historical addresses in all directions. Tapping on the resident brings up their record from AddressingHistory and will sometimes be illustrated with an icon representing the profession of that addressee.

Screenshot of the AddressingHistory Augmented Reality layer.

Screenshot of the AddressingHistory Augmented Reality layer.

Above is a screen capture of the view at night looking out of our offices but we will add some additional images to the website along with more information about how to use the layer shortly.

 It all sounds complicated but it’s actually very easy to use once you are all up and running.

How to Install 

To use the AddressingHistory Augmented Reality layer you will need to download and install the Layar App on a compatible iPhone, Android or Nokia phone.  Once you have done this and have opened the app you need to add the AddressingHistory layer as a favourite. To do this search for “Addressing History” within the App. Alternatively you can do directly to the layer page (http://www.layar.com/layers/buildar11124) as shown below:

Image of the Addressing History Layer download screen.

Image of the Addressing History Layer download screen.

 

QR code leading to the AddressingHistory Augmented Reality layer

Once you have added the AddressingHistory layer as a favourite you can start exploring the history of Edinburgh street by street – a perfect weekend activity!

The layer was built by the very talented EDINA software engineers using the buildAR tool. If you are interested in finding out more about the properly geeky parts of creating great geographic content for mobile phones then take a look at the occasional EDINA Mobile Geo blog.

Please do give the layer a try and let us know what you think – we think you’ll agree that this is a fantastic new way to browse AddressingHistory. We’d love to hear your feedback and experiences.

And if you think this is exciting…

Look out for another update from the AddressingHistory team very shortly with news of what we’ve been working on for the last few months…