BESTie Dr. Sherry Hsi’s research is featured in Earth & Space Science News: Superimposing responsive digital effects onto sand in a sandbox places educators, students, and policy makers in an augmented reality, offering a hands-on way to explore geoscience processes. Sherry is currently a Senior Researcher at the Concord Consortium.
Excerpt: The AR Sandbox uses a computer projector and a motion-sensing input device (e.g., a Microsoft Kinect 3D camera) mounted above a box of sand. The user shapes the sand in the box, and the camera detects the distance to the sand below. A three-dimensional (3-D) model of the sand surface is used to project contour lines and a color-coded elevation map representing the corresponding topography onto the sand’s surface. As users move the sand, the camera perceives the changes, and the projected colors and contour lines change accordingly.