The Canterbury Christ Church University spin-out will increase its offering with new edition.
Canterbury Christ Church University spin-out Puteko, which produces an augmented reality colouring-in app, is celebrating 450,000 downloads of their app colAR. The company has announced it will now release a new edition of its “magic book” which will focus on native New Zealand animals.
The app is targeted at young children, and the new edition is the first step in the company’s long-term plan to produce educational materials for schools in New Zealand and globally. The company is based Japan, where it has found its largest customer based. The research and development arm however is still in Christchurch, and maintains a strong connection to the Human Interface Technology Lab at the university.
The app brings children’s colouring to life using augmented reality: users print out the specially designed pages on their printer and colour them in. They then run the app on their smartphone or tablet and point it at the page, making the pictures pop out of the page in animated 3D on the screen, using the user’s own colours and textures.
The technology was developed at the Human Interface Technology Lab in 2011 by Clark and Andreas Dünser. Following awards at international research conferences, the pair decided to enlist the help of another researcher, Katy Kelly, and created a commercial product.
