Sew, grow and mow: An AR lawn art experience

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Cubist lawn art.

Sew, grow and mow is a multi-user virtual lawn art experience played in real locations with real dimensions in real time. Sew, grow and mow is a continuation of an existing idea about persistently augmenting a space.

The experience

Location
Users choose a location nearby or a location they can easily access to place their virtual lawn. Suitable locations can be determined by browsing satellite photographs such as Google maps. They can then choose the design.

Design
Users can choose from a library of lawn art design templates or create their own with a basic lawn art editor. Lawn art designs can be previewed by going to the location and viewing the proposed design through Sew, mow and grow or by previewing their design superimposed on an aerial photograph such as Google maps.

Sew
Users can then choose the grass (native to their area or imported) they’d like to sew for their lawn. Each type of grass has a particular quality such as shape, colour, speed of growth, resistance to drought and climate that can enhance and contribute in some way to the finished lawn art. Users have the option to review their location, design and sewing choices before they can start to grow their lawn. They can also choose the climate they’d like for their lawn. Climate can be based on location of lawn or from a weather data supplied by an agency such as the Bureau of Meteorology.

Grow
Once the climate has been selected the users can then start growing their lawn. Grass can take a long time to grow. That’s why Sew, grow and mow has a feature to expand and contract time. Doing this enables the user to grow their lawn in a short period of time. Users can check the growth of their lawn by going to the location of the lawn and then viewing the lawn through Sew, mow and grow or by viewing their virtual lawn superimposed on a satellite photograph such as Google maps.

Mow
Users can start shaping their lawn art once the lawn has grown to a minimum or recommended length suitable for mowing. Users need to go to their location and then choose from a lawn mower, hedge trimmer or mini-trimmer. Holding their device like a lawn mower, hedge trimmer or mini trimmer, users can use Sew, grow and mow to view their virtual lawn and move around their location to start shaping their lawn art. A stencil of the users design will be placed over the screen to help the user shape their lawn art. The completed lawn art can be shared with friends, removed completely or maintained for as long as the user wants to. Mistakes or errors in mowing can be repair by returning to the Grow stage.

The following diagram describes the experience of Sew, grow and mow.

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The flow of Sew, grow and mow.

2 Comments

  1. Cool! I will be able to do lawn art virtually at your house? Real Reality is better, I know!

    • Hi Alan!
      You won’t be able to mow the virtual lawn at my house unless you’re actually there. The lawn art is virtual, but the location or physical space is not. I want people to be able to create lawn art in a space of their own regardless of climate and suitability or availability of space to cultivate real lawn art.

      There could be a co-op feature that allows people to design and then mow for the ultimate lawn art!

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