New K-State app features interactive campus map

For those new to the K-State campus or for those who are simply lost, PowerCat Enhanced is the app to help.

PowerCat Enhanced is a free application released for the iPhone and Android-based smart phones designed to serve as an interactive map specifically for the K-State campuses in Manhattan, Salina and Olathe. The map uses the phone's GPS to show points of interest, including academic buildings, housing and dining locations, administrative offices and parking lots.

"Our goal is to help new K-Staters and campus visitors more easily navigate our campuses," said Lindsay Clark, co-creator of PowerCat Enhanced and assistant professor of apparel, textiles and interior design. "A helpful upperclassman isn't always around to give directions, and that is when PowerCat Enhanced is there to offer a lifeline."

PowerCat Enhanced runs on top of the augmented reality program Layar, an app that provides facts and details over images viewed through a mobile phone camera. The app experiments with augmented reality, a term used to describe a view of a real-world environment, virtually enhanced with computer-generated imagery to provide information.

"This is all about assisting new students as well as visitors to the campus," said Jan Elsasser, co-creator of PowerCat Enhanced and director of information management for the Division of Student Life. "So many times we see people who are trying to find a location or their way around campus, and we thought this was a good way to utilize something they are most likely carrying, like a smart phone, to find their location."

One feature the app provides is a radar view of the campus, which allows the user to see nearby points of interests and get more information about those points. Once the location is visible, the viewer has information like the name, a small view of the building, what is located inside and the distance to the building.

Augmented reality is expected to become a regular part of higher education in the coming years.

"AR applications are already being developed to aid in medical procedures, building design and therapeutic game environments," Clark said. "The greatest barrier to full integration is the cost of AR equipment for the user, which is why we chose the most affordable AR equipment — your mobile phone."

PowerCat Enhanced is available for iPhone 3GS or above and smart phones running the Android platform. The Layar program also requires a GPS system, camera, compass and accelerometer, so phones without these essentials cannot support the PowerCat Enhanced app.

"I think it will make it a lot easier for those new to K-State who don't know their way around yet to find their way around campus and to class," said Jena Sauber, freshman in mass communications. "Especially for freshmen — it could save the embarrassment of getting lost and will help if there is no one around to help out at the time."

Elsasser said the developers currently have more ideas in store for the app. One example is to add actions, which are essentially used to give more helpful information about an area through an audio or video clip once the user reaches a certain distance from the location. That is one of several functions the designers hope to include to enhance the application.

For more information on PowerCat Enhanced and how to use it, students can go to ksu.edu/layar.