GuidiGO was presented with the Gold MUSE Award in the category Games and Virtual/Augmented Reality during a champagne reception on Sunday, May 7, 2017, at the 2017 American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.

This award recognizes GuidiGO’s high achievement in the application of media and technology to Gallery, Library, Archive, and Museum (GLAM) programs.

Lumin content was created by the DIA’s interpretive team leveraging GuidiGO’s augmented reality platform, AR Composer, built specifically for Tango. This allows the user to interact with real size 3-D animations, information and display directions in the visitor’s field of view. (Learn more about Lumin.)

The MUSE Awards competition received more than 200 applications from a wide variety of institutions in North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. This year’s entries included videos and films, interactive kiosks and installations, VR experiences, applications and APIs, digital communities, websites, audio tours, and more.

Over 90 GLAM professionals from across the globe participated as jurors in the process of reviewing and scoring entries. Winning programs were expected to demonstrate outstanding achievement in their content, interface, design, technical merit, innovation, utility, and appeal.

Now in its 28th year, the MUSE awards competition recognizes outstanding achievement in GLAM media and technology efforts. The competition is administrated by the American Alliance of Museums Media & Technology Professional Network.

For more information about the MUSE awards, please visit this page.

The RMN-Grand Palais won first place in the “Virtual and Augmented Reality/Immersion” category for their exhibition entitled “Sites Eternels“ (Eternal Sites). We are particularly pleased with this news as GuidiGO created the Tango app used for this exhibition in collaboration with the Google Cultural Institute.

Using 3D images from the startup Iconem, the app we developed allowed visitors to explore a reproduction of the ancient city of Palmyra in augmented reality on Tango tablets, and to witness the destruction of its arch piece by piece, along with a simulation of its reconstruction.

This world premiere of the augmented reality experience with Google Tango was offered for free to the Grand Palais visitors, highlighting the latest technological advancements and applying them to the preservation and dissemination of our cultural heritage.

In practice, these solutions require an infrastructure that is often more cumbersome and more expensive than expected, and the results are sometimes disappointing (see our article on Tech Trends). Taking into account the limits of such technologies, GuidiGO decided to explore a different path by making our app compatible with Google Project Tango. This technology offers an incomparable advantage: it works without any infrastructure. Yes, you read that correctly: no infrastructure at all! No need for an internet connection, WiFi, sensors, or GPS. Museums have nothing to install and no equipment to maintain!

David Lerman, GuidiGO’s CEO, explains the magic behind it: “The tablet is loaded with sensors that detect motion, volume, and depth. A 3D map of the interior of the museum is created in advance by scanning the walls, partitions, installations, etc. The tablet later recognizes these elements and makes it possible for the visitor to remain continuously localized, with no need to connect to any signal.”

But that’s not all, not only do visitors know their exact position, they can also opt for a 3D view with an AR path superimposed on the floor…

… or choose a dual view with the 2D map:

Would you like to see a live demo? Take a look at our app running in this video shot at the beautiful Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, during the recent MWC 2016 (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona. The GuidiGO app was presented to the press in the presence of teams from Google Project Tango, and Lenovo – the manufacturer of the tablet.

Besides being a game changer for indoor positioning, Project Tango’s ability to recognize the user’s environment opens the door to numerous AR applications. At the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, we were excited to present the interpretation of a painting in Augmented Reality. Above a 33-foot-long canvas (“The Battle of Tetuan” by Mariano Fortuny), AR 3D markers appear in the air, indicating that additional content is available to explain a detail in the piece.

 
And this is only the beginning… Stay tuned!

Learn more:

• Lenovo: “How Project Tango Will Change the Way You Use Your Phone”
• Tom’s Guide: “How Google’s Project Tango Won Me Over with AR and Art”
• Digital Trends: “Digital Trends Top Tech of MWC 2016 award winners” (Read: Lenovo’s Project Tango)
• Digital Trends: “Touring a museum with Project Tango is an empowering glimpse into the future”
• Slash Gear: “How Lenovo and Project Tango will reinvent your smartphone”
• CNET: “Project Tango could come to a museum near you”
• BGR: “Lenovo and Google are about to blow the lid off digital indoor mapping”
• The Verge: “Google just showed me the future of indoor navigation” (watch GuidiGO app at work in the video!)
• PC Mag: “A Night at the Museum With Project Tango”