New app means that you can spot the ISS utilizing Augmented Actuality

November 22, 2023 – Solwey Consulting, an Austin-based woman-owned small enterprise specializing in knowledge, design, and software program options, has not too long ago introduced its involvement within the growth of NASA’s customized ‘Spot the Station’ cell app.

In line with Solwey, the mission was a part of a collaboration with Ensemble Consultancy underneath NASA’s Open Innovation Companies contract, often called NOIS2. Ensemble, as a NOIS2 vendor, engaged Solwey for the app’s growth, testing, and upkeep.

Solwey was chosen from twelve software program businesses to create a singular utility that comes with augmented actuality (AR) and interactive map visualizations. The ‘Spot the Station’ app allows customers to trace the Worldwide House Station (ISS), notifying them when it’s close by. The app integrates AR expertise to overlay the ISS’s trajectory with a telephone’s digital camera view, enhancing the stargazing expertise.

“We’ve realized a major quantity in working with a model as huge as NASA on a cutting-edge mission that goals to encourage and educate, empowering folks worldwide to expertise the awe-inspiring sight of the area station passing overhead,” commented Andrew Drach, co-founder and CEO of Solwey. “This mission is a testomony to how customized software program helps resolve a few of the biggest challenges society faces — and it exemplifies our dedication to delivering cutting-edge options that sort out distinctive challenges throughout various industries.”

The ‘Spot the Station’ app provides a user-friendly interface, offering an inventory of upcoming sighting alternatives of the ISS primarily based on chosen areas. It additionally options 2D and 3D interactive maps to hint the ISS’s present path globally. Extra sources, together with information and informative particulars concerning the station, are accessible inside the app.

Solwey’s technical contribution to the mission concerned creating open-source React Native code for each back and front ends, suitable with iOS and Android platforms. Moreover, Solwy acknowledged that most people can submit updates to the open-source code repository, which is managed and maintained by Solwey engineers underneath NASA’s GitHub account.

“Serving to create the Spot the Station app was an thrilling endeavor that pushed our inventive boundaries. Each consumer expertise unlocked by this utility is made doable by way of the environment friendly back-end code developed by our staff to obtain knowledge from the area station, calculate its stay trajectory and present spatial place related to the user-provided location and produce an inventory of future sighting alternatives, all in an nearly real-time method,” mentioned Monika Jociunaite, co-founder and artistic director of Solwey.

Solwey Consulting famous that since its founding in 2016 it has developed over 80 digital merchandise, together with a logistics platform for perishable gadgets and an AI-powered machine studying platform for knowledge scientists.

The ‘Spot the Station’ App is now out there for obtain on iOS and Android platforms, with the discharge coinciding with the twenty third anniversary of the ISS.

For additional details about Solwey Consulting and its customized augmented actuality software program options, please go to the corporate’s website.

Picture credit score: Solwey Consulting