Academics bring historic places in Asbury Park into 3D reality
Virtual tours launch June 29, sneak peak party at the Lanes June 27
Thanks to modern technology, visitors to the Asbury Park Boardwalk who wonder what parts of the waterfront looked like back in the city’s heyday have a chance to see them in an “augmented” reality.
Monmouth University professors Mike Richison and Marina Vujnovic and Kean University professor Ed Johnston have spent two years researching the history of the city’s beachfront and have announced this week the official launch of Asbury Park’s first historical augmented reality tour – Augmented Asbury Park.
The project is a 3D reconstruction of several key landmarks that once populated the boardwalk, including the Casino, the carousel that was once housed in the adjacent Carousel house building, Palace Amusements, the Natatorium and the Monterey Hotel. Another reconstruction shows the SS Morro Castle, a ship three times the size of Convention Hall that caught fire on a return trip from Havana, Cuba, and beached itself in front of Convention Hall on Sept. 8, 1934.
To view the images, smartphone users have to download the free mobile app Junaio. Once Junaio is loaded, users must search for “Augmented Asbury Park” in the app’s search feature. The application uses the phone’s camera as a viewfinder. By holding the phone up to a special images the mobile app recognizes as “markers,” 3D depictions of the landmarks show up on top of the special images [working marker shown at left, with a screengrab of what the marker looks like viewed through the app below — a tilt of the user’s phone shows different angles]. 
The project naturally lent itself to the three, who have backgrounds in 3D sculpting, graphic design and motion graphics, journalism, art and new technology. It started with the digital reconstruction of the carousel that once stood inside the Carousel House on the boardwalk through a grant the team was given from Monmouth University.
Richison calls the structure “a sculpture within itself.”
In the 1990s, the carousel was sold to Family Kingdom, an amusement park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The team traveled to Myrtle Beach to take photos and construct a digital model. Following the project’s success, the team launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise capital to digitally rebuild the other key landmarks.
Asbury Park library’s large postcard collection was instrumental for gathering images of the landmark structures. Robert Stewart of the Asbury Park Public Library, and Don Stine of the Asbury Park Historical Society also assisted the professors in their research.
Beginning Sunday, June 29, users will be able to bring their phones with them on a virtual tour of the “Augmented Asbury Park” sites, where they will be able to view full scale recreations of the landmarks on their phones while standing in front of their former locations [screenshots of what the carousel site will look like on a smartphone shown at left]. Johnston and Richison will lead the half hour multimedia walking tour of the boardwalk starting in the Grand Arcade of Convention Hall at 2:30 p.m.
After the walking tour, a one-day only poster exhibit of the markers will be on view at the Asbury Park Yacht Club from 3 to 5 p.m.
Johnston and Richison will then lead tours every Sunday in July beginning at 2:30 in the Grand Arcade.
“It’s a dual experience,” said Richision, as the landmarks can be viewed on-site by someone living in Asbury Park, or someone far away viewing the markers through the web.
They plan to work with other local businesses and schools and spread this project as a free educational resource. The project website www.augmentedasburypark.com provides images of the downloadable markers for free so they can be used as portable sites for the 3D content. This enables the project to be distributed to the public off-site in the local community and schools.
A sneak peak of Augmented Asbury Park will be available to music fans at Asbury Lanes on Friday, June 27 at 8 p.m. Local recording label Little Dickman Records will be sponsoring an evening of punk rock featuring Brooklyn-based band Dirty Fences. The lineup, curated by Asbury favorites The Battery Electric, also features local musical acts, the VanSaders and Hot Blood.
More information on this project can also be found at the project website: www.augmentedasburypark.com, on Facebook: Augmented Asbury Park, and Instagram and Twitter: @augmentedasbury.
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