The Obelisk, built in 1896, is one of Penn State’s oldest landmarks made up of 281 building stones from locations around the state of Pennsylvania. This spectacular landmark is 33-foot-tall and stands beside the Allen Street mall near Willard building on the University Park campus.
To learn about Obelisk’s history and stone information, visit here.
Being an artistic expression of the geological history of Pennsylvania, Penn State’s Obelisk qualifies to become an efficient immersive learning and analytical platform. Hence, by leveraging current state-of-the-art immersive technologies, Obelisk’s 3D model, 360° photos and other spatial and non-spatial information, we have recently developed Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR and AR) applications that provide immersive, interactive learning platforms for K-12 and introductory-level Geoscience students. Our developed Obelisk-VR and -AR platforms provide opportunities for an enhanced learning process by allowing seamless navigation between and immersive interactions with dynamically linked 3D real-world objects, data (both spatial and non-spatial), and multimedia contents. In this way, either the need for fieldtrips to distant outcrops can be made optional once students have access to these immersive platforms (i.e. VR) in the classroom or learning in the outcrop sites can be supplemented through opportunities offered by AR platforms.
Demo: Immersive interactions in the developed Obelisk-AR prototype (marker-based)
* Our location-based Obelisk-AR is currently under development.
Click link below to download Groundplane-based Obelisk AR app supported on Android Phones (e.g. S7):
Obelisk-AR App (Updated on Sept 12, 2018)