Not that it suddenly makes your life more interesting or meaningful, but just because it can be fun … To dispel boredom, Google has added a feature in its search engine that gives you a 3D view of a ‘living’ animal in your living room, bathroom or backyard magic. When the feature premiered last year, you could only watch a handful of animals. Today, an entire zoo is available.
Step 1: Display in 3D
In times of staying home, viewing 3D animals can be a pleasant way to dispel boredom. All you need is a smartphone that supports augmented reality. That can be an Android phone that is ARCore and ARKit ready, or an iPhone. Then open your phone’s default browser and navigate to the relevant animal in Google. Last year this only worked with a tiger, lion, giant panda, a Rottweiler and a wolf. Now the list has become much longer (see the list). Around Easter, Google even added an Easter bunny. Scroll down until you get to a box that says something like View [het dier] up close. Tap the button there Display in 3D.
Step 2: Moving animals
Then point your phone’s camera at the floor, or the sky if it’s a bird. Moments later, your phone will switch to augmented reality view. This may take a few seconds and a small window tells you to gently move the phone back and forth. The animals are not simply placed statically. The horse is kicking and sniffling, the Easter bunny hopping around, and the eagle flaps and screeches through the living room. As with other AR objects, you can zoom in and view the object seamlessly from different angles.
Step 3: Not just animals
Besides, it’s not just animals that you can view that way. For example, Google and NASA have teamed up to bring an extensive collection of celestial objects in 3D to your screen. You can rotate them, zoom in on them, but they do not appear AR in your interior. For example, enter Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Venus or another celestial body as search term followed by 3D and search for the button in the results View in 3D. Then select the view Object.
