AR building Tour
California Academy of Sciences,
San Francisco
2020
A web-based project that shows the scale of museum spaces. This has become an essential tool for the Event Rentals team developed to compensate for COVID closure. With a combination of 360° photos, spacial UI, and event photos the team increased sales by being able to virtually show off the building.
Originally imagined as a proof-of-concept for virtual exhibits, this quickly became an essential tool to walk clients through the building to get a sense of scale before visiting. The 360° spaces are overlayed with contextual information about the spaces and image examples of previous events at that location.
Explore for Yourself
Process of developing this tool
Taking advantage of the building being closed during lockdown, the team was given access to the building while empty. Using a special camera, the team capturing 360° images from multiple vantage points for each room and event space around the building.
A storyboard showing the user flow for how a visitor would navigate from the home screen (resembling the museum’s visitor map) to content.
When images are captured in their original format they are panorama images that have to be processed to be visible in VR and AR.
Example of what the VR headset view looks like for this content. Most users experiences this app through mobile or desktop devices. Alternatively, a staff member sometimes will clickthrough this tool on a video call to orient a conversation.
Examples of AR Experience
-
![]()
1. Map view of the building (this is an example of the living roof)
-
![]()
2. Selecting a hotspot on the AR map to explore in 360°
-
![]()
3. There are 3 action options: arrows, camera icons, and info buttons.
-
![]()
4. Camera icon opens a card with an event photo, short description and a link to view more images.
-
![]()
5. Info buttons provide important context to the space and what it can accommodate
Navigation: Visitors can change the map view with the “select floor” dropdown menu.
Navigation: Visitors can select an AR view by either selecting a pin on the map, or selecting from the left-handed menu that has the rooms in a list view.
The Team
Andrew Sawyer – UX, Visual Design & Strategy
Molly Michaelson – Producer
Nick Perez – Camera Operator & Post Production
Greg Rotter – Web Development
Nick Colin – Content