Over the weekend, ARDevCamp held its very first event in Australia, bringing a Layar-sponsored gathering of augmented reality developers to Sydney. Rob Manson - the man behind MOB Labs and Certified Layar Creation Tool buildAR - hosted the event and posted a great overview of the day’s activities on his blog. Here are a few selections from Rob’s report.

The first ARDevCamp in Sydney was a great event with 40-50 people attending throughout the day. It was held at the Powerhouse Museum in their ThinkSpace providing interactive whiteboards, projectors and laptops for those who needed them. Throughout the day we covered a lot of topics and there was a lot of interesting discussion and debate generated.

Early in the day we covered a basic introduction to Augmented Reality in general and discussed the difference between geo-located, marker based and computer vision based AR. It also gave me a chance to rant a little about my views on the currently limited definition of AR.

@alexmyoung then presented an overview of the current state of interaction available in AR applications. She covered the “4 key modes of AR UX” outlined on the http://AR-UX.com site and it was a great chance to review and debate how projective interfaces like Sixth Sense fit into this analysis. This also raised some interesting discussion around gesture recognition, barehand computing and the opportunities for defining standard languages and norms in this space.

Then @DamonOehlman ran an interesting session on WebGL and I think a lot of people’s eyes were opened to the opportunity that is rapidly evolving here. We had some initial hurdles at the beginning to configure the browsers to support WebGL but quickly overcame that and were able to demonstrate the Mixing Reality demo along with some others. This is a great match for where this technology is really at. It doesn’t work out of the box and the average web user doesn’t even know it’s possible…but without too much effort at all you can get some mind blowing content running in your browser.

Warren Armstrong also gave an overview of the (Un)seen Sculptures exhibition that uses Layar to present art from a wide range of artists at venues like the Sydney Opera House during the Vivid Festival.

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The rest of the afternoon people spent hacking on various projects with a lot of people using http://buildAR.com to start creating layers like the #ARDevCamp layer. @absolut_todd was even able to quickly take the list of Victorian Microbreweries provided by http://data.gov.au to create what is obviously a very useful layer 8)

We wound up the day with a quick play with the Parrot AR Drones and then all headed off for drinks at the Pumphouse which were very kindly sponsored by the team at Layar.

Out of the day came about 100 tweets which reached over 47,000 users. Since then a number of people have also created some great blog posts about the day.

We at Layar are very excited to see the love of augmented reality spreading to every hemisphere of the planet! In fact, following this event in Sydney there are a few more events being planned in the area, including Brisbane, Melbourne and New Zealand.

Photo by Halans.

“Miro Alien Chest-Burster” by Jon Rafman at the VPAP@PIFA AR exhibition in Philadelphia.

While there doesn’t appear to be an “Augmented Reality Awareness Month” yet, April is looking like a strong candidate. Besides the lovely weather here in Amsterdam and in many parts of the world (ideal for mobile AR experiences), there are already two Augmented Reality art exhibitions (in 3 locations) using the Layar platform so far this month.

The first runs from April 7-May 1 in Philadelphia, PA as part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA). This exhibition is a collaboration between Breadboard, a hybrid program at the University City Science Center dedicated to exploring the intersection of art, science and technology, and Layar Partner VPAP (Virtual Public Art Project).

VPAP@PIFA features 25 works of art placed strategically around around the city (like on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for instance). These 3D AR models include, but are not limited to, a giant alien snake (see image, right), a deformed foot that changes color, and a giant squid.

Mark Skwarek‘s “Occupation Forces” at the (Un)seen Sculptures exhibit in Sydney/Melbourne Australia.

Meanwhile, another ARt exhibition called (Un)seen Sculptures kicks off on April 9 in Sydney, Australia as part of the Surry Hills Festival then reopens in Melbourne on April 30.

The exhibition was organized by Australian new media artist Warren Armstrong and features 3D models created by 13 artists from across the globe, including a robot army (see image, left) a memorial for Japan, and a colony of hallucinogenic toads that copulate and then die.

You won’t be able to see the models yourself unless you’re physically present at the exhibition locations, but if you do go to one of these events, send us your screenshots! (content@layar.com)

Congratulations to all the artists, veteran Layar developers and new, for their phenomenal work. These are some of the best 3D models we’ve seen on Layar yet!