AR Geography Textbooks

This paper describes the process of developing an Augmented Reality (AR) textbook
mobile application. This mobile application allowed the students to view the
superimposed virtual 3 dimensional animation objects in a fun and interactive manner
using the marker-less physical traditional textbooks as the interaction tool. The idea of
the whole project is to create a whole new and better learning experience that would be
able to captivate student's interest in study. Besides, the reason behind choosing the
Geography subject as the topic is because it is one of the subjects that has been teaches
to every students who are pursuing their studies in every secondary school located in
Malaysia. The author also believed that Geography subject is very important as it
provide us with the knowledge of the world around us. It is also related to etiquette as it
discussed the impact of both natural and manmade factors. Though each student will get
a free textbook under Textbook Loan Scheme (SPBT) sponsored by Ministry of
Education, the problem is that students might find the traditional textbooks dull and
boring considered the factor of these current generations are pretty tech-savvy these
days. Students in these generations are easily distracted and bored when they need to
learn from a traditional textbook. This is due to maybe they are always surrounded by
new technology and gadgets that can offered them a lot of entertainment which is very
interactive and fun. However, the use of augmented reality should solve this problem.
Augmented Reality (AR) is considered the best of both worlds, where, real and virtual
objects are combined in the real environment, that will allow the use of both technology
based application and a traditional physical textbooks, combining the benefits of both
and meeting the students and teachers midway. Although AR technology is not new, its
application on education sector is still not enough. The main aim of this research is to
develop an interactive AR textbook where it can create a whole new and better learning
experience that would be able to captivate student's interest in study. One of the
objectives of the study is to enhance the traditional textbooks by implementing an AR
technology. Meanwhile the scope of this project involves 3D modeling, texturing,
rigging and animation.