While browsing the hundreds of posters yesterday, one stood out.

There was a small molecule wiggling and jiggling inside an active site. Then, after a trip through an exit tunnel, the entire protein was in view.

It was a video. Not unheard of, but certainly not common for a poster session. The author had duct taped a small Android tablet onto her poster to show people the dynamic motions of her proteins.

Seeing her poster after seeing some of the vendors’ virtual reality exhibits got me thinking. How hard would it be to incorporate augmented reality figures into your poster?

It certainly can be done. The wildly successful augmented reality cell phone game Pokémon GO is based on virtual figures floating in physical space. But Pokémon GO uses GPS. If you base the AR on 2D images, it wouldn’t be that difficult to print those out on the poster, then use a phone to interact with them.

There are currently several platforms that help develop AR figures off of 2D objects such as posters. Layar, CraftAR, Blippar, Metaio (recently acquired by Apple), and Wikitude are a few of the top names.

Let’s make it a challenge. Who will be the first to incorporate AR into their BPS poster next year?

Have you seen scientists already using AR in the wild? Let me know on twitter! @westerfieldjm

Read more about creating AR content here.

--Justin Westerfield