Tilman

Here is an idea for a super fast workshop on augmented reality with Vectary.com and the iOS standard ARKit player: Students first create a simple 3D object. They have to register first, which is kind of a hurdle. But then it is very easy to slap some shapes together. The free plan is enough. Vectary’s tools and controls are rather intuitive and there is a plethora of 3D shapes, objects. There is also a large library of 3D materials (Try the glossy ones!).

Vectary has AR functionality built-in if you are on a payed plan. As it turns out, you do not need that! Just export the project to the file format USDZ through the menu in the upper left. USDZ is a relatively new 3D content format optimized for extended realities. And Apple decided to support it natively in iOS.

So all you have to do is getting the USDZ file unto a not-too-old iPhone and open it through the Files app. No additional apps or installs are needed! The object opens in a nice, clean and usable AR player! Place it anywhere, move by dragging, scale by pinching. The quality is top-notch with some sophisticated real-time rendering. It even recognises human body shapes and masks them, so it appears persons can walk in front of the AR projections. Pretty neat.

Ethan Mollick on AI in education: "Just as calculators did not replace the need for learning math, AI will not replace the need for learning to write and think critically. It may take awhile to sort it out, but we will do so.“

open.substack.com/pub/oneusefulthing/p/the-future-of-education-in-a-world^*

It was pleasure to talk to Sarper Yurtseven at the Day of Mathematics Istanbul this morning! We talked about my Geometry Daily graphics, my process, inspirations and – or course – geometry. The 45 minutes were recorded and are available on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHp5UOlms-4^*

Sarper tried to recreate one of my graphics with generative AI. The results are super interesting and surprisingly three-dimensional: youtu.be/MHp5UOlms-4?list=PL7DHNy6n7rOjTTkRtrxbOL7OAVRk4_59O&t=2971^*

www.instagram.com/p/Cp2upx8IplC^* The team of the Mathematics Day Istanbul (!!) asked me to give an interview about my graphic work on geometrydaily.com^* tomorrow. It’s streaming live, so tune in on 11.00 CET: youtube.com/MatematikTurkiye^* I don’t know if there will be a recording afterwards. Unfortunately the rest of the online event is in Turkish.

Dan Klammer did a lot of research, which fonts are common on all the modern operation systems, and came up with modernfontstacks.com^*. Incredibly useful resource for web design. The little info icons lead to explanations and visualisations of each typeface class. This is even more interesting, although it also reveals that the available fonts on the individual OSs are much more different than one would hope.