The AR Sandbox is primarily a do-it-yourself effort. Most end users download the AR Sandbox software right from this web site, buy the necessary computing hardware from online vendors, and design and assemble their own physical sandboxes (see the External Installations page for examples of such custom designs).
That said, there are several vendors who sell complete pre-assembled AR Sandboxes. When selecting a vendor, check that their AR Sandboxes are based on our software (it will typically say something like "the Augmented Reality Sandbox was developed by the UC Davis W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences..." somewhere on the vendor's web site). Please note that we are in no way, shape, or form affiliated with any of those vendors. Important: Specifically, that means that none of those vendors have contracted with us to provide tech support. Please keep that in mind, and also see the answer to "Why are you guys so slow to respond to support requests?"
The AR Sandbox consists of three main components:
All software components are available free of charge. Our recommended flavor of Linux, Linux Mint, can be downloaded as an installation image, and the other three software packages are available for download right from this web site following the links above.
The price for the required or recommended computing hardware varies somewhat on a day-to-day basis, but roughly speaking, a Microsoft Kinect camera can be bought from eBay for less than USD 100, pre-built "VR ready" PCs with sufficient specs can be bought from online vendors for around USD 700-USD 800, and appropriate digital projectors are generally available for around USD 500.
The cost of the sandbox itself can vary wildly, depending on the user's needs. A simple yet fully functional AR Sandbox can be assembled from a plastic tub full of hardware store sand, and two tripods to hold the camera and projector, for probably less than USD 100. A "museum-grade" AR Sandbox that withstands public exhibition and unsupervised hands-on audiences, or a boutique AR Sandbox that needs to fit an institution's design scheme, can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars.
For example, the prototype AR Sandbox we built ourselves while developing the project cost about USD 2,700 in materials (including camera, PC, projector, and sand).
Operating an AR Sandbox incurs certain running costs. Electricity, for one, as the AR Sandbox uses a high-powered projector and a high-performance computer. Our original prototype AR Sandbox, which uses a 3000 ANSI lumen projector and an older, less power-efficient, PC and graphics card, draws approximately 400W (measured at the wall outlet) during continuous operation. Other running costs include projector light bulb replacements, and on-going replenishment of sand.
The AR Sandbox has two main features: a dynamic topography map that colors the sand based on elevation and draws contour lines, and a real-time realistic water flow simulation. It is only the second feature that requires a high-end graphics card. If water simulation is disabled, the AR Sandbox runs on any computer that supports 3D graphics via the full OpenGL 3D graphics library, including desktop and laptop PCs with integrated graphics processors (IPGs) such as Intel HD Graphics or AMD APU. This does not, however, include system-on-chip (SoC) based devices like Raspberry Pi, which only support OpenGL's embedded systems subset (OpenGL ES or GLES).
If simulation of flowing water is not a requirement for your installation, you do not need to buy a dedicated graphics card, at least not initially.
The AR Sandbox requires a 3D camera to operate. The software is currently compatible with the following camera models: Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360 (Kinect v1), Microsoft Kinect for Xbox One (Kinect v2, with some reliability issues), and Intel RealSense cameras working with the first generation of Intel's RealSense SDK (which excludes the new D415 and D435 cameras).
Both versions of the Kinect camera have been discontinued by Microsoft, and first-generation Intel RealSense cameras do not work very well. Until there is funding to develop driver software for additional 3D camera models, the best option is probably to buy a used Kinect v1 from eBay or similar places, and buy the required USB/AC power adapter, which is often not included in eBay offers, from a vendor like Amazon.
The frequency of the most common maintenance task, re-calibrating the AR Sandbox's camera and projector with respect to each other, depends primarily on the build quality of the physical sandbox, and the excitability of the expected audience. A jury-rigged AR Sandbox with a wobbly camera and/or projector mount might require re-calibration every day or even before every use, whereas a "museum-grade" AR Sandbox with an integrated camera/projector housing and well-designed mounting brackets might be able to go many months between re-calibrations. The re-calibration procedure requires one custom tool (a CD or DVD with a paper disk glued to one side), and takes a trained user approximately 5 minutes.
As the name implies, the AR Sandbox uses sand. Depending on the type of audience, that sand might not stay inside the sandbox forever, or might get dirty, and therefore might have to be cleaned or replaced on an on-going basis. Concomitantly, the AR Sandbox's environment might require regular sweeping. Sand can be added to or removed from the AR Sandbox at any time, without requiring any other actions (such as re-calibration).
Most digital projectors use light bulbs with lifetimes measured in the thousands of hours. If an AR Sandbox is run for eight hours a day, seven days a week, a light bulb rated for 3000 operating hours would last approximately one year. The difficulty of replacing a projector light bulb depends on the design of the AR Sandbox's projector housing, but it typically requires a trained user and may take several hours.
The Microsoft Kinect camera seems to last forever as long as it is not physically damaged (which is why "museum-grade" AR Sandboxes aim to keep it out of the audience's reach), and PCs typically work for many years as long as they are well ventilated to avoid running hot.
The AR Sandbox software never requires maintenance as long as the PC hardware does not physically fail. The AR Sandbox is a computational appliance, meaning it is not connected to the Internet, can be set up to require neither a mouse nor a keyboard nor a monitor, and never needs software or security updates.
Yes. Please refer to the answer to this same question on the Download page.
No. Obviously, downloading the AR Sandbox software and its dependencies (Kinect 3D Video package, Vrui VR toolkit, and Linux) requires an Internet connection. Additionally, the primary installation guides and manuals are online and the Vrui package's installation script (see Vrui download page) downloads additional system packages during execution, but once all the software is installed, the AR Sandbox never has to be connected to the Internet again. In fact, we recommend disabling all network hardware (Ethernet adapters, Wi-Fi adapters, Bluetooth adapters, etc.) on the PC running the AR Sandbox after software installation is complete.
The AR Sandbox is popular with all ages, for different reasons. Very young children (younger than six years) like playing with the bright and colorful sand, but should not be left unsupervised as they tend to get very excited, and the sand then tends to leave the box. As audiences get older, they get interested in different levels of the science exhibited by the AR Sandbox. Elementary school students might experiment with simpler concepts such as elevation coloring or basic water flow and might benefit from facilitation by a docent or science teacher; middle schoolers might learn about contour lines or flow networks and wave propagation; high school or college students might think about the Earth science processes underneath the AR Sandbox's surface, or the computer science driving the real-time visualization and simulation; professionals often imagine or invent new applications for the AR Sandbox within their own fields.
In principle yes, but the AR Sandbox has certain requirements that are typically not met by general-purpose PCs. Most importantly, the AR Sandbox requires a powerful "gaming" graphics card to operate. Specifically, we recommend at least some version of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (as of 01/22/2018). The AR Sandbox will run very poorly, or not at all, on PCs that have low-end graphics cards, or only offer the integrated graphics processors (IGPs) of current-generation CPUs.
It is sometimes possible to upgrade general-purpose PCs by buying an appropriate graphics card separately, but this is only recommended for experienced users, as there can be hard-to-predict incompatibilities with the PC's motherboard, chipset, or power supply. Therefore, we strongly recommend buying (or assembling) a dedicated gaming PC, such as the line of "VR ready" PCs that are available at many online vendors.
In principle, the AR Sandbox software runs on laptop computers, as long as they contain a powerful-enough discrete graphics processing unit (GPU), i.e., one that has equivalent performance to the desktop version of the recommended Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (as of 01/22/2018). However, we strongly advise against using a laptop computer to drive an AR Sandbox. Not only are laptops with powerful graphics cards typically (much) more expensive than desktop PCs of comparable performance, but many laptops with Nvidia GPUs contain Nvidia Optimus technology, which is not fully compatible with Linux and may prevent the AR Sandbox software from accessing the high-performance GPU and leave it with the underpowered integrated graphics processor (IGP) of the main CPU.
If users insist on using a laptop computer against our advice, they must ensure that that laptop either does not contain Nvidia Optimus technology, or that it is possible to disable Optimus via the BIOS configuration screen. The open-source Bumblebee project, which aims to provide independent Optimus support, is difficult to install, may not always work, and may be abandoned.
In principle, yes. Ideally, projectors to be used for an AR Sandbox should have a native 4:3 aspect ratio, e.g., a native XGA resolution (1024x768), and a short throw distance (zoom factor of around 1.0) to match the Kinect camera's field of view. General-purpose projectors typically have longer throw distances (zoom factors larger than 1.0) and therefore need to be mounted higher above the sandbox, which often requires using a mirror to fold the projection light path, which in turn makes the overall system more complex and prone to loss of calibration. In addition, modern general-purpose projectors typically have 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratios, which will lead to overprojection out of the sides of the sandbox.
No. The AR Sandbox software (and the underlying Vrui VR toolkit and Kinect 3D Video package) run exclusively on UNIX-like operating systems, ideally on Linux. We recommend using the up-to-date release of the Linux Mint distribution, specifically its MATE 64-bit edition.
The AR Sandbox also does not run from inside a virtual machine, as the guest OS (in this case, Linux) does typically not get direct access to the host PC's graphics hardware, which is required to run the AR Sandbox's demanding water simulation code. It might, in rare circumstances, be possible to run the AR Sandbox without water simulation inside a virtual machine, but we strongly advise against it.
While the AR Sandbox is run by a computer, and that computer runs Linux, do not think of that computer as a PC. It is an appliance, comparable to many other Linux-based appliances such as Internet routers, Wi-Fi access points, DVRs, or set-top boxes. After the initial software installation (which could be performed off-site), the computer never has to be connected to a network again, and will never require any software or security updates (unless you want to add new AR Sandbox functionality). The computer can be configured to run in "kiosk mode," where it does not even require a mouse, keyboard, or monitor, and can be locked away in a (well-ventilated) cabinet. It is simply powered on in the morning, and powered off again in the evening.
The original NSF grant that funded development of the AR Sandbox is long over, and the AR Sandbox is currently unfunded. We are performing maintenance software development and offering support only on a volunteer basis, as much as possible. Our employers frown on doing AR Sandbox-related work during workdays, and our families frown on doing it during the evenings or weekends. We try.
Why, yes, you can! The UC Davis W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES), under whose umbrella the AR Sandbox was developed, has a gift account. A one-time tax-deductible donation is only one click and a short form away at this location: UC Davis Giving - KeckCAVES Fund. UC Davis accepts all major credit cards.