Almost a year ago we told you about (Un)seen Sculptures, and Australian augmented reality art exhibit at the Surry Hills Festival featuring 3D models created by 13 artists from across the globe. The digital exhibit returns again this year, presented by dLux MediaArts as part of Sydney Art Month, and is currently seeking submissions from artists.

If you’re not sure what a mobile 3D augmented reality art show is, (Un)seen Sculptures describes itself as “a sculpture walk composed entirely of virtual 3D works that have been ‘placed’ at specific geographic locations.” Using Layar, visitors to the exhibit can view the sculptures (and any accompanying media) with their smartphone.

To submit your 3D digital artwork, you’d better act fast, the deadline is this Saturday, February 25th. Essentially, anything that works on Layar should be accepted, but make sure to keep models below 5,000 polygons and, in general, keep any files to a low size to avoid slow load times.

Submissions should include the following:

• Artist name.
• Title of work.
• Any additional subtitles to be displayed in Layar.
• 200 dpi image of the artwork (for printed promotional purposes).
• An artist statement of short description of the work.
• Link to the artist’s website.
• 3D files of the artwork.
• Any accompanying media files.

Any submissions or questions should be sent to filmcement[at]gmail.com. For full descriptions of requirements and guidelines for submission, see this PDF. We’re looking forward to seeing what makes its way into the show this year!

As a special exhibition for Australia’s 2011 National Science Week, (August 13-21) some talented folks are bringing dinosaurs back from extinction; and it doesn’t require frog DNA or Jeff Goldblum.

The Jurassic Science Week layer features 3D models of old favorites like Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex, as well as some lesser-known species like Chungkingosaurus and Parasaurolophus, all of whom are happy to pose for a screenshot photo with you.

In fact, taking screenshots with the AR dinosaurs could pay off in more ways than just enviable new Twitter/Facebook photos (c’mon, we know you’re just as big of a dinosaur geek as we are), because iiNet is hosting a competition for the best human/dino screenshot. The winner of iiNet’s Photographasaurus Competition will receive a year’s worth of free internet with iiNet service! 

The Jurassic Science Week layer is a collaboration between the creatives at Scitech, the stellar development skills of Valance Phua at iiNet, and the Australian government’s Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

For those of you who can’t make it to Australia next week, here’s a sneak peek at a few of Jurassic Science Week’s 3D dinos:

Over the weekend, ARDevCamp held its very first event in Australia, bringing a Layar-sponsored gathering of augmented reality developers to Sydney. Rob Manson - the man behind MOB Labs and Certified Layar Creation Tool buildAR - hosted the event and posted a great overview of the day’s activities on his blog. Here are a few selections from Rob’s report.

The first ARDevCamp in Sydney was a great event with 40-50 people attending throughout the day. It was held at the Powerhouse Museum in their ThinkSpace providing interactive whiteboards, projectors and laptops for those who needed them. Throughout the day we covered a lot of topics and there was a lot of interesting discussion and debate generated.

Early in the day we covered a basic introduction to Augmented Reality in general and discussed the difference between geo-located, marker based and computer vision based AR. It also gave me a chance to rant a little about my views on the currently limited definition of AR.

@alexmyoung then presented an overview of the current state of interaction available in AR applications. She covered the “4 key modes of AR UX” outlined on the http://AR-UX.com site and it was a great chance to review and debate how projective interfaces like Sixth Sense fit into this analysis. This also raised some interesting discussion around gesture recognition, barehand computing and the opportunities for defining standard languages and norms in this space.

Then @DamonOehlman ran an interesting session on WebGL and I think a lot of people’s eyes were opened to the opportunity that is rapidly evolving here. We had some initial hurdles at the beginning to configure the browsers to support WebGL but quickly overcame that and were able to demonstrate the Mixing Reality demo along with some others. This is a great match for where this technology is really at. It doesn’t work out of the box and the average web user doesn’t even know it’s possible…but without too much effort at all you can get some mind blowing content running in your browser.

Warren Armstrong also gave an overview of the (Un)seen Sculptures exhibition that uses Layar to present art from a wide range of artists at venues like the Sydney Opera House during the Vivid Festival.

[…]

The rest of the afternoon people spent hacking on various projects with a lot of people using http://buildAR.com to start creating layers like the #ARDevCamp layer. @absolut_todd was even able to quickly take the list of Victorian Microbreweries provided by http://data.gov.au to create what is obviously a very useful layer 8)

We wound up the day with a quick play with the Parrot AR Drones and then all headed off for drinks at the Pumphouse which were very kindly sponsored by the team at Layar.

Out of the day came about 100 tweets which reached over 47,000 users. Since then a number of people have also created some great blog posts about the day.

We at Layar are very excited to see the love of augmented reality spreading to every hemisphere of the planet! In fact, following this event in Sydney there are a few more events being planned in the area, including Brisbane, Melbourne and New Zealand.

Photo by Halans.

“Miro Alien Chest-Burster” by Jon Rafman at the VPAP@PIFA AR exhibition in Philadelphia.

While there doesn’t appear to be an “Augmented Reality Awareness Month” yet, April is looking like a strong candidate. Besides the lovely weather here in Amsterdam and in many parts of the world (ideal for mobile AR experiences), there are already two Augmented Reality art exhibitions (in 3 locations) using the Layar platform so far this month.

The first runs from April 7-May 1 in Philadelphia, PA as part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA). This exhibition is a collaboration between Breadboard, a hybrid program at the University City Science Center dedicated to exploring the intersection of art, science and technology, and Layar Partner VPAP (Virtual Public Art Project).

VPAP@PIFA features 25 works of art placed strategically around around the city (like on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for instance). These 3D AR models include, but are not limited to, a giant alien snake (see image, right), a deformed foot that changes color, and a giant squid.

Mark Skwarek‘s “Occupation Forces” at the (Un)seen Sculptures exhibit in Sydney/Melbourne Australia.

Meanwhile, another ARt exhibition called (Un)seen Sculptures kicks off on April 9 in Sydney, Australia as part of the Surry Hills Festival then reopens in Melbourne on April 30.

The exhibition was organized by Australian new media artist Warren Armstrong and features 3D models created by 13 artists from across the globe, including a robot army (see image, left) a memorial for Japan, and a colony of hallucinogenic toads that copulate and then die.

You won’t be able to see the models yourself unless you’re physically present at the exhibition locations, but if you do go to one of these events, send us your screenshots! (content@layar.com)

Congratulations to all the artists, veteran Layar developers and new, for their phenomenal work. These are some of the best 3D models we’ve seen on Layar yet!

Art is everywhere. Whether as simple as a crude marker sketch in a bathroom stall, or as intricate as a mixed-media mural covering the side of a building, there are dozens of inspired artistic creations free to view right outside your door. 

These pieces are often hidden in back alleys and tunnels, or painted over by the city or a rival artist, however, with MOB‘s new mobile streetARt application (available for free in the iTunes store), you can see the many different types of public art around you, past and present.

MOB developer Rob Manson has talked about street art with colleagues for years, as there are hundreds of great public art pieces on the streets and at skate parks near his house in Bondi Beach, Australia as well as in Sydney and Melbourne. Once the Layar Player became available for iPhone, Manson wanted to create an app to show it off that used widely distributed content in the AR view, so an ever-growing international collection of street art was the perfect fit.

Manson started the content-gathering process by running scripts across Flickr, which resulted in about 30,000 street art images in over 500 locations. The streetARt app then adds to that content, allowing users to snap photos and upload them directly to streetARtAPP.com.

In the iPhone app, users join the streetARt community by connecting their Twitter accounts where they can “like” and comment on photos as well as upload their own from inside the app. Currently the “likes” and comments are only visible to other app users, but Facebook/Twitter sharing is coming soon, along with other features like permalinks and advanced filtering options.

While Layar Player (and therefore the streetARt app) is currently only available for iPhone, streetARt’s content is fully viewable from within the Layar application, so both iPhone and Android users can view the images.

MOB is an Australia-based business innovation lab focused on mobile and online platforms. A member of the Layar Partner Network, MOB is responsible for the BuildAR layer creation tool as well as numerous other layers.