Code on Canvas was engaged by the Jericho Disruptive Innovation team at the Royal Australian Air Force to help showcase how Air Force threats and capabilities to deal with these threats evolve from now to 2040 at the Air Space and Power Conference.
The technology being talked about was incredibly impressive as always for the Jericho team so the display had to be as well. To that end we brought in partners Featherweight Projects to make sure we nailed the research, language and storytelling and 3D partners Studio Stopniak and Tilde Visual to help with the mammoth amount of animated content and make sure everything looked its best.
We told the stories by playing out two different detailed operational scenarios across different decades using either Multiplayer Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality devices.
Onsite and Offsite AR
The AR experience was available either on supplied iPads at the conference or for download on the Android Play and Apple App Stores. Attendees could point their devices at the custom-designed tables and have the AR automatically pop into view or users offsite can tap to place the same AR content on any surface.
Multiplayer VR
We wanted to ensure the VR experience was intuitive and engaging so built a custom shared tracking system between devices that enabled multiple attendees to don headsets and congregate and move around a physical table whilst seeing the scenarios play out across it. This was complete with the ability to see the other people in VR and even a forcefield if you got too close to them.
With both the AR and VR, attendees were able to intuitively move around the physical space together which allowed them to dive straight in and explore these scenarios irrespective of their experience with the technology, also seeing how it could assist in their own workplace such as to assist personnel visualise complex operational scenarios like mission rehearsal and replay.
Story 1: Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief
The first scenario explored how the Defence Force would assist a Pacific Neighbour in the aftermath of a cyclone. Little did we know after scripting this just how accurate this would prove to be as we watched the news as cyclone Gita hit Tonga.
Story 2: Securing Sea Lines of Communication
The second scenario dealt with a threat to Australian soil. As fascinating as it was to see the technology evolve into the future let's hope we don't have to learn how accurate this one was too!
We had a wide variety of Defence Force personnel, from pilots of the craft in the scenarios to high ranking Australian and Foreign Defence visitors and the feedback was all positive. We were happy to see it so well received as the entire team thoroughly enjoyed immersing ourselves in the project over those few months to come up with both accurate and beautiful scenarios explored in a technologically intuitive yet sophisticated way. We’re looking forward to equally rich and rewarding projects in future.