On Monday, I posted a couple of holiday cards that I made using Aurasma Studio. If you follow the instructions on my post, then you can view “augmented reality” versions of the cards. I promised that I would give instructions for making the cards shortly. These are NOT the instructions 🙂
I found that getting familiar with the free Aurasma app on my iPad and iPhone helped me when I ventured into creating my own channel “auras” using the web-based Aurasma Studio. So, I’m going to start with the app instructions today.
I believe there is an Android app for Aurasma, but I only know how the iOS one works, so those are the instructions you will find below. *Aurasma recently updated their app, so some of the instructions may be a little “off”. You may be asked to register at some point in this process. Registration is free, but I recommend that you use a fairly generic username and i.d. that you won’t mind sharing with your students. This will make it easy for you to share the auras you create on multiple devices.
1.) Download the free Aurasma app from iTunes.
2.) When you first open the app, there will be a short introduction. Tap on “Launch” to clear the screen.
3.) To use the app on a single device, you must create an “aura”. Tap on the Aurasma symbol. (It looks like a purple triangle with a notch in the bottom.)
4.) The first thing you will see are “Super Auras” that were created by Aurasma partners, mostly for advertising. Ignore those.
5.) Tap on the +.
6.) You will be directed to choose an “Overlay”. For practice, go ahead and choose the “labrador puppy”.
7.) Then you will be directed to choose a “Trigger Image”. From experience with my students trying to create these, I have the following tips: pick something that will not change how it looks any time soon (so, don’t take a picture of someone’s face) and is not very reflective. A picture printed on a piece of paper is usually good.
8.) The updated version of Aurasma now has a nifty little toggle at the bottom that will move toward the green end if it is a good image. Tap on the camera when the image is good.
9.) Then you get to “Position the Overlay”. You can move the labrador puppy around on top of the image, make it larger or smaller, and even rotate it. When you are happy with it, click on the arrow.
10.) You will be asked if you want to make the aura public or private. Go ahead and choose public. (This may be a part where you will be prompted to Log In or register.)
11.) Once the aura is created, you should then be able to hold your iPhone or iPad over the image you used as a Trigger Image (staying within the Aurasma app), and the labrador puppy will appear.
12.) If you chose to make the aura public, then any device that is signed in to the account you used to create the aura will be able to view the labrador puppy overlay as well. (This is a brand new feature in the latest update, and I could not find the exact differentiation on the Aurasma site for “public” and “private” images. However, in my very scientific home testing, it appeared that other accounts could not view the public aura unless signed in to the same account, and devices other than the one on which it was created could not view the aura at all if it had been labeled as “private”.)
Tomorrow, I will give instructions for adding your own overlays to your Aurasma app, rather than using the ones in their library (although those are quite fun!)
