National Gallery of Art, DC

The National Gallery of Art app is one of the most complex of all of the visitor navigation and exploration apps we developed with Guidekick's technology. Originally designed to use artist-created maps, the client decided to switch to Guidekick's new Ambiarc mapping technology mid-way through development. The Ambiarc tools create a full 3D map from multiple 2D blueprints and then allow you to apply materials and textures to create a beautiful 3D representation of your buildings, with extraordinary accuracy. We had to extend the Ambiarc SDK to provide all of the functionality we required for this extensive app.

The NGA later decided to switch from Guidekick's internal content management system to its own TMS. The NGA's collection is huge, containing over 75,000 works of art, and we soon found that we needed to create a caching system to minimize app startup times. The NGA also has its own events and exhibitions feed and we integrated this with a calendar system so that the app can show which events and exhibitions will be available on the day you plan to visit.

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Using Guidekick's battle-tested wayfinding and navigation system and a custom filtering system we were able to add a real-time "nearby artwork" system to the app which alerts users to works of art which are close to them as they explore the extensive grounds of the NGA's two buildings and exterior grounds.