The Gary King Jr. Mural App was created in 2017 to honor Gary King Jr. who was killed by an Oakland police officer in 2007. This project uses augmented reality to restore his memorial mural at its original location after it was painted over.

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Project Background

In 2007, my friend Gary King Jr. was shot and killed by an Oakland police officer. A beautiful mural was painted in his honor at the site of the shooting, underneath the BART tracks. I would drive by it every day. But in 2009, after the murder of Oscar Grant, BART painted over the mural.

Pictured below left is what the original mural looked like in 2007. On the right is what is looked like 10 years in later in 2017.

I wanted to figure out how I could use technology to put the mural back in its original place. Using the gaming software Unity3D, I was able to use the poster on the pillar as an image target, so when my smart phone recognized the image, it would lay Gary’s memorial mural on top of it.

Below is what the original prototype looked through the camera lens app.

This original app prototype was released on the Google Play Store on the 10 year anniversary of Gary’s murder. It is currently no longer active but I would like to utilize the advancements of augmented reality technology to continue with this project in the future.