{"id":19914,"date":"2017-05-02T16:59:44","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T23:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/making-apps-for-google-cardboard\/"},"modified":"2017-05-02T16:59:44","modified_gmt":"2017-05-02T23:59:44","slug":"making-apps-for-google-cardboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/making-apps-for-google-cardboard\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Apps for Google Cardboard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Creating a VR app on thunkable<\/a> without knowing how to\u00a0code<\/h4>\n
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\u201cour thunkable beaver loves virtual field trips!\u201d by our amazing designer, Yue\u00a0Xi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Humpback whale-inspired Cardboard App: Click to start drawing using the tilt of your head, shake to erase. This app was inspired by a recent trip to Maui during humpback whale breeding and mating season in February of this\u00a0year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Click here<\/strong><\/a> to remix this Cardboard App on thunkable<\/pre>\n
The Future is\u00a0Virtual<\/strong><\/h4>\n
We\u2019re making a long-term bet that immersive, virtual and augmented reality will become a part of people\u2019s every day life\u201d?\u2014?Mark Zuckerberg<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
A few weeks ago at Facebook\u2019s F8 developer conference, Mark Zuckerberg revealed Facebook\u2019s bet on the future?\u2014?and that future is\u00a0virtual<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Outside of Silicon Valley, this message must have been puzzling as virtual reality is still a bit of a mystery to most people. In the US, only *one in ten adults has ever tried VR<\/a> (*as of 2015, when the latest stats were available).<\/p>\n
When most experts talk about virtual reality, they imagine an experience similar to the one I experienced at my cousin\u2019s house in Queens, NY last year. A fully immersive headset connected to a powerful standalone box with add-on features like joysticks to let you not just be immersed in a virtual world but also take a lead role within\u00a0it.<\/p>\n
While I must admit I was blown away by the experience of shooting zombies from all angles or being eye to eye with a gigantic blue whale, I never felt comfortable in a virtual world that someone else imagined for me. And while the future of VR may eventually converge on bringing users front row to some of the best events on the planet, today, you are still immersed in some creator\u2019s fantasy.<\/p>\n
What if anyone could be not only a consumer but also a creator of virtual experiences?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
https:\/\/medium.com\/media\/2af887fb9416e2602fa4829400040f64\/href<\/a><\/p>\n
Virtual Reality for (Almost)\u00a0Everyone<\/h4>\n
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Buy your own Cardboard on Google for $15, or $25 for\u00a02<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Three years ago, a few Googlers in their 20 percent time<\/a> hacked together one of the best inventions towards bringing the virtual experience to almost everyone: Google Cardboard. Unlike the robust virtual reality machines that required a roomful of equipment and cost my cousin several thousand dollars\u00a0, Google Cardboard could retrofit any smartphone with a gyroscope and minimum operating system requirements<\/a> into a VR machine for the masses, all for the relatively accessible price of\u00a0$15.<\/p>\n
Designing for Cardboard<\/h4>\n
Creating your first cardboard app on thunkable<\/a>, the fastest way to make native mobile apps without knowing how to code, can be as easy as remixing the code for the sample app<\/a> I\u00a0created.<\/p>\n
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Before you get started, please note that there are a few key components in any virtual reality app?\u2014?a Gyroscope<\/strong><\/a> sensor<\/strong>, which can sense changes in rotation and tilt of your phone, a Canvas<\/strong>, <\/strong>which provides both the visual palette and the touch sensor for the Cardboard, and a Sound <\/strong>player, which works with the Canvas to trick your eyes and ears that you are in another environment.<\/p>\n
With Cardboard, there is only one button that is enabled to trigger an event for the user?\u2014?so you have to creative if you want to create something like a drawing application that both draws and erases. In the case of the sample app I created above, I added an Accelerometer<\/strong> to erase the canvas when I shook the\u00a0phone.<\/p>\n
The app project size limit on Thunkable is 10 MB so be careful of the size of your images and audio files<\/strong> which may exceed those limits since you\u2019ll likely want to include as rich a media as you have available. Audio clips can be shortened into loops and images can be sized down to their minimum required size for the maximum screen size you want to\u00a0support.<\/p>\n
One other peculiar thing that you may notice is that the drawing for this sample app only happens on the left side of the screen. One reason for this idiosyncrasy may be explained by how our eyes combine two separate images to form a single projection in our brains. For whatever reason, when the drawing only appears to one eye, based on my own experience, it appears more 3-dimensional.<\/p>\n
Remixing a Cardboard app on thunkable<\/h4>\n
Click here<\/strong><\/a> to remix this Cardboard App on thunkable<\/pre>\n
To make your own version of the sample I app I created, you may want to follow the simple steps\u00a0below.<\/p>\n
Step One. <\/strong>Click here<\/strong><\/a> to copy the sample app into your thunkable account<\/strong><\/h4>\n
If you are a first time visitor, you might want to first watch our beginner tutorial series on\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Step Two. Add an image, preferably a square one to the two Canvases in the\u00a0app.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
In my case, I took an image from my favorite Square-shaped social media account, Instagram.<\/p>\n
Step Three. Add your own audio\u00a0track.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
I was lucky enough to record underwater audio of a humpback whale calf and mother earlier this year on a GoPro and used it for the sample\u00a0app.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/medium.com\/media\/d91d3b80efc8e7c5ddb1078d83708f0e\/href<\/a><\/p>\n
Step Four. Live test it. Make tweaks.\u00a0Repeat.<\/h4>\n
If you don\u2019t have the thunkable Live app, download it here<\/strong><\/a>. With the app, you can accelerate your app development by seeing the changes on your phone as you make them. Try changing the color of the lines or the speed of the ball and you\u2019ll see it instantly reflect on the app. Even hard-core developers don\u2019t have this\u00a0tool.<\/p>\n
Sharing is\u00a0Caring<\/h4>\n
This sample app is only the tip of what\u2019s possible with VR on thunkable. We invite you to let your creativity run wild and post questions to our wonderful community of developers<\/a>.<\/p>\n
At thunkable, we are beginning to believe that sharing apps and their source code enables our community of (mostly) first-time developers to not only build better apps but to also build them faster. In other words, we believe ain\u2019t nobody got time to create the same app that another thunkable developer has created\u00a0before.<\/p>\n
To encourage sharing, we are creating a new section in our community forum called #OpenSource<\/strong><\/a> for thunkers of all kinds to share their app source code files (.aia) for other developers to learn from and remix into something even\u00a0better.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll share our favorite open source app projects and the stories of the developers behind those projects on this\u00a0blog.<\/p>\n
We look forward to seeing what you\u00a0share!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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Making Apps for Google Cardboard<\/a> was originally published in Thunkable Thoughts?\u2014?The How and Why You Would Make Your Own Beautiful App<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>\n
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Creating a VR app on thunkable without knowing how to\u00a0code \u201cour thunkable beaver loves virtual field trips!\u201d by our amazing designer, Yue\u00a0Xi Humpback whale-inspired Cardboard App: Click to start drawing using the tilt of your head, shake to erase. This app was inspired by a recent trip to Maui during humpback whale breeding and mating… Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19915,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[373,374,370],"tags":[382,380,381,378,379],"class_list":["post-19914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-augmented-reality","category-mixed-reality","category-virtual-reality","tag-immersive","tag-mixed-reality","tag-mr","tag-virtual-reality","tag-vr"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t