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Residents may have noticed QR codes on signs downtown and as the old ads used to say, “There’s an app for that.” Hoverlay is its name, and it’s a free cellphone app which allows users to see invisible art all over the town of Winchester.
Penn Road resident Milan Kovacev co-invented Hoverlay. Back in 2016, he and his partner, Nicolas Robbe, had an idea about how to use augmented reality to “put digital content at any location or object so anyone can find it instantly, without searching Google,” he says.
For instance, at a concert, attendees could collect digital information about the musicians during the show, as they're engaged with music, rather than remembering to look for their website or social presence after the performance is over.
“Anybody can use the Hoverlay app,” he says.
Hoverlay provides a free and paid version of their web-based spatial publishing platform for content creators, while their camera browser app is free for anyone who wants to consume virtual content.
Kovacev says due to its complexity, Hoverlay represents the “bleeding edge” of technology. In addition to its camera browser, Hoverlay has its own web-based publishing platform that enables anyone to easily produce “spatial content.”
Kovacev points out that many immersive media artists use it to show their virtual art, while cities and municipalities use it to offer virtual historic, art, and tourism tours.
“Boston uses it on the Greenway” he says, “to provide the history tour and showcase how this spot used to look before the Big Dig. Concord High School students created a virtual historic campus tour to commemorate their 150-year anniversary.”
Los Angeles uses it at 50 downtown locations while Chicago's Millennium Park recently launched its largest AR art exhibit powered by Hoverlay.
But residents with the app can see the images, videos, and 3D models themselves at any time.
In Winchester, Cultural District Chair Hilda Wong-Doo created content, along with Cultural Council member Peter Pulsifer and Shukong Ou, so residents can tour the Riverwalk exhibit on Sept. 21, which also has videos on display.
Wong-Doo says she learned about Hoverlay from an exhibit on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. “It was so easy to learn,” she said. “It took me fifteen minutes to create my first piece in my living room.”
She said this means creatives can just focus on the experience they want to create and not have to learn a new coding language.
“The goal of this first exhibit was to show people what can be done and encourage them try it out,” she added.
Kovacev came to Boston 30 years ago from his native Serbia when he won a scholarship to Berklee College of Music for piano and marketing. Hoverlay's mission,” he says, “is to let anyone be able to create new immersive experiences and a gravity-defying AR content. Hoverlay,” he says, “lets anyone create something from nothing.”
