Building Holographic Cities with Mapbox and Looking Glass: Introducing the #Holocities Hackathon
When Looking Glass Factory launched the HoloPlayer One last year, I got to try out HoloBrush, an early HoloPlayer application that uses the built-in RealSense camera that lets you 3D sketch in mid-air with your finger. No glasses needed. I used this tool to draw a simple cityscape skyline and suddenly, my mind was chock full of “Holocities.” Specifically, I started to think about ways in which holograms might be built into cities, and how cities might be built and analyzed through holographic interfaces
As the age of the “smart city” dawns — it sometimes feels as if we live in hyperspace — inhabiting digital simulations and databases of our cities as much as physical space. In fact, people have always inhabited cities as much in their imaginations as in the physical spaces they live in. We remember historical spaces, plan for the future, and imagine utopias, dystopias, and various alternate realities. Thanks to the ubiquity of VR, AR, sensors, AI, and the other technology you’ll find permeating any typical smart city conference, we’re beginning to inhabit and share these hyperspaces to a degree we’ve only imagined in science fiction.
To cite just a few quick examples of how new technologies are finding ways into our everyday urban lives: there are AR prototypes to help you navigate the city, overlay historical maps and images onto real space, and even to assist firefighters navigating a blaze. Meanwhile, Google Earth VR is blowing the minds of those who have always dreamed of taking a magic carpet journey to world landmarks.
As a fairly new category of device, HoloPlayer One adds interactivity (sans headgear) to this chaotic melange of hyper-city technologies. Unlike AR and VR devices, HoloPlayer scenes can be viewed by groups of people without any special headgear, realizing a sci-fi dream that has existed since R2D2 first projected Princess Leia’s distress signal out into thin air. Whereas VR is perfect for short, vivid first person experiences, lightfield displays are great for in-situ installations and ambient experiences. They can be left running in the background, augmenting a room or an empty urban space like a globe, sculpture, or fish tank. Lightfield display prototypes like HoloPlayer One promise to deliver landscapes straight out of Blade Runner or Ghost in the Shell: giant urban holograms commingling with the skyline, looking down on augmented and un-augmented citizens alike.
I began to imagine all of the ways these urban holograms might diffuse into our everyday experience of the city, and wondered about the “holo-urbanists” who might be designing them. How could we inspire these future urban hologram designers?
Well, we’re about to find out. On February 3rd, Looking Glass and Mapbox will be jointly hosting the #Holocities Hackathon at Looking Glass’s labs in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Everyone is welcome to register to particpate at this link here. Because spaces are limited, we ask that you first fill out the survey and await an email from our team for final confirmation. We can’t wait to spend the day with you building 3D city maps, apps, art, and experiences in HoloPlayer One with the Mapbox Maps SDK for Unity!
So, what sorts of things could we build together? Here are a few ideas to get you started.
An Interactive Museum Exhibit
The Museum of the City of New York has an exhibit where you can design a future vision of New York which is then projected on a large wall. We envision something similar using holoplayers to design a space that someone in VR can explore and critique from eye-level.
Bring your architectural model to life
You know that old model you have lying around from architecture school? “Bold, but impractical” they said. Show them they’re wrong using the Super Pepper to augment your model with tiny inhabitants, weather effects, and a virtual cityscape to give it context.
Visualize complex volumetric data
A lot of geographic data can be interpreted just fine in 2D, but some information lends itself perfectly to a volumetric display. Some examples might include building shadows, air currents, pollution, and temperature mapping. A perfect companion to the growing network of ubiquitous sensors capturing complex snapshots of urban rhythms.
Create a novel wayfinding kiosk for a station, park, or mall
Some parks, metro stations, and interior spaces are hard to navigate even with an isometric map. Imagine a kiosk with an interactive holo-map that shows you exactly where you need to go. What other functions might a public hologram kiosk serve?
Augment the view from an observation deck window
What if you could get a guided tour of the city seen from the window of a tall building. Point at a building and get information about it, or see a presentation of what the skyline might look like in 20 years, or after a sea level rise.
A volumetric HUD for urban transit
What would you do with a 3D interface on urban transit? Imagine volumetric maps and information displays aboard an automated car or bus. What kind of volumetric imagery might appear outside the window of a subway car in a tunnel?
If any of these ideas excite you or you have some of your own, RSVP to join us on February 3rd at the #Holocities Hackathon or stop by for a preview on January 31st at our Hologram Hackers of the World meetup. If you want to get a head start, you can read some tutorials about Holoplayer and the Mapbox Maps SDK for Unity, which we will be using at the events. You’re also welcome to join the discussion at the Happy Hologram Hackers Hangout.
See you soon, hyperspace hackers…
To the future!
Nick Kaufmann is a freelance urbanist, translator, and storyteller based in Portland, Maine. In his spare time he leads Code for Maine, a #civictech brigade in the Code for America network, and hosts Space Jams, a community radio show about city-inspired music and sonic geographies. Tweet to him @nickkauf
