The Nextgen railway footbridges catalogue is a series of passenger footbridges, which has been put together by the Buildings and Architecture department at Network Rail. Their latest addition to the catalogue, the Futura bridge, is now made public via ARki 7.0 update. 

ARki 7.0 includes a major list of new features, helping you create faster, more engaging augmented reality experiences! ​

In this era of mobile computation, it is important to understand how architectural space is continually determined through digital interfaces, as much as it is by its physical counterparts. As computational intelligence strengthens within the domain of augmented reality technology, it becomes vital to understand how people experience physical space through a series of digitally crafted landscapes, and how these digital interfaces can become embedded within architectural design and fabrication.

With the release of ARki 2.0 we made a challenging decision to re-develop the app with the inclusion of a marker-less AR solution, ARkit, versus our previous marker-driven SDK provided by Vuforia. The pro and cons of both solutions were extensive, and we deliberated over this decision tirelessly. However in the end ARkit won, and today I wanted to go over some of our reasons for why we chose to upgrade to ARkit over our beloved Vuforia SDK. 

​The introduction of paper-less AR is a total game changer for ARki visualisations. The ability to bring design propositions to life without the need for printed images, means that ARki is free from the confines of paper printouts, and paper size limitations. Now ARki is able to be explored spatially, on-site, and in any environment that could essentially benefit from an augmented visualisation. The release of ARki 2.0 is the start of our paper-less AR adventures. We are excited to see how this new toolkit allows us to start incorporating AR within the built environment, and at much larger scales than the standard AR experience.