Murrysville artist will launch augmented reality app at Export's annual community festival

It’s been quite some time since a train rumbled along the tracks through downtown Export. But through the technological magic of augmented reality, visitors at the annual Export Ethnic Food & Music Festival will get a chance to see one, at least on their smartphones.

The festival will include the launch of TrueAR, an app designed by Murrysville resident Chris Ruane and Carnegie Mellon University systems and software engineer Aydaen Lynch. It will help bring Export history back to life, so to speak, through the use of augmented reality.

Augmented reality is an interactive experience in which a real-world environment is enhanced by computer-generated elements, sounds and other stimuli. The once-popular Pokemon Go game app is a prime example.

“Aydaen and and I both saw that it was very hard for any small business to do augmented reality,” Ruane said. “It was cost-prohibitive for a business to even get involved with that type of technology. We thought there had to be a way for something like a pop-up art exhibition or the mural in Export can allow the use of this technology by ‘the little guy.’”

Ruane is an internationally awarded artist, having won New Media Film Festival awards in the augmented reality category in 2018 and 2020. He said TrueAR will be a subscription-based service “and it will house multiple projects where people with smaller businesses can do these cool AR experiences you don’t typically see in a small community.”

After being approached by the Export Historical Society, Ruane and Lynch began working to create a three-dimensional model of the two trains featured in the Export mural, which sits alongside the Westmoreland Heritage Trail downtown.

“We’re taking a 2D image and bringing it to a place where you can view the train as a 3D object,” Ruane said. “It’s very easy to use. It’s basically point and play. I think people will like it a lot.”

Re-creating a digital model of a steam locomotive is no easy task, though.

“Looking at the train and figuring out all the different pieces was difficult,” Ruane said. “That train was specifically customized for coal mining work. So we wanted to be as historically accurate as we could.”

TrueAR will officially launch Aug. 19, the day of the festival, and will be available through Google Play Store and iTunes.

Ruane said he has a few surprises in store for the launch and is excited to see the reaction from festival-goers.

“There really is nothing like it around here tying together history and current technology,” he said.

For more about TrueAR and about Ruane and Lynch’s company, True Interactive, visit TrueInteractive.io.