Google AR Animals

It’s your very own private zoo

Google has some wonderful pieces of fun throughout their websites and applications, from their Google Doodles to their easter eggs hidden in programs.

One recent creation of theirs is ‘Google AR Animals’ that allow you to view a life-sized model of an animal using your phone or tablet camera in comparison to your surroundings.

But what exactly is AR? AR is an acronym which stands for ‘Augmented Reality’ which is simply a combination of virtual objects (the animal) and the real world (through your camera). What Google have done is they’ve created life sized 3D models of animals and by using some complicated maths, they’re able to place these models into your camera and pin them to a spot so they don’t move around when your camera moves. This means you could walk around the model and see it from all angles!

To begin, all you need to do is search in Google ‘How big is a tiger’ or ‘How big is a panda’ and you’ll see an info box similar to the one below. Then you just need to press the ‘View in 3D’ button and complete some simple steps (such as moving your camera around so that Google can calculate how big the room is). Once that’s done you can start looking at all the animals they have!