MAXimizing REALITY: Where Good Ideas Come From
Shortly after the super football game began between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals, viewers watching TV saw what looked like a giant video screen descend over the field displaying player stats. People sitting in the stadium didn’t see it because the video screen was created with augmented reality.
As soon as I saw it, I grabbed a notepad and sketched out a simple drawing, so I’d remember what the 3D panels looked like…
I do this a lot. And not just during football games. While watching the national news on Telemundo one night, I saw what looked like numbers on a map. Then suddenly, the numbers slid off to the side and into the studio, where they morphed into a data panel! I sketched that one too, and I’m currently creating something similar for one of my clients.
Whenever I see something that looks like augmented reality, I sketch out the idea either on a notepad or my iPad. Many of the sketches never become complete Max Reality scenes. But that doesn’t bother me. The ideas are there, percolating in my mind and someday, when I’m trying to create an augmented reality scene, some of these concepts or pieces of them will help me create something new and exciting.
“Good ideas are not conjured out of thin air,” writes Steven Johnson in the book, Where Good Ideas Come From. “We take the ideas we’ve inherited or that we’ve stumbled across, and we jigger them together into some new shape.”
That video screen hanging over the football field could easily become a data panel in Max Reality displaying rainfall amounts for the month and year. Those numbers that slid off the map into the studio space could be a list of airport delays or forecast high temperatures. Or something else entirely different!
Broadcast meteorologists tell me that coming up with new Max Reality ideas can be challenging. Although The Weather Channel produces some spectacular full-studio augmented reality sequences, I find my best ideas not from watching other weather presentations but from watching news and sports. Especially sports, because these productions usually involve a lot of stats, just as weathercasts include lots of data.
READ MORE: GETTING STARTED WITH MAX REALITY
Fox Sports uses augmented reality all the time during the regular football season. It’s not uncommon to see Cleatus the Robot stomping around the field next to numbers compiled by a team of analysts. ESPN uses augmented reality so often during SportsCenter it’s sometimes difficult to tell if parts of the set are real or computer-generated.
If you ever needed another reason to spend all day watching sports, this is it! Tell your significant other that you’re doing augmented reality research. Then grab a notebook or your iPad and get ready to sketch. You never know what you’ll see and what might trigger a completely new idea that someday could become a Max Reality scene.
Tim Heller is an AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist, Talent Coach, and Weather Content Consultant. He helps local TV stations and broadcast meteorologists communicate more effectively on-air, online, and on social media.