Kids bored? Give them a thrill — or scare — by using a Google feature that lets you put augmented-reality (AR) dinosaurs into your living space. Not only is it highly entertaining, but it’s also a fun educational tool. After all, the AR prehistoric creatures will appear in your house in their “true” size. Yeah, a T-Rex definitely does not fit inside my living room.

My daughter had a blast jumping into the picture when we played around with the AR dinosaurs.

How to Access the AR Dinosaur Feature in Google

These dinosaurs aren’t the only creatures available in AR with Google. Over the last year, they’ve added a variety of AR views with different animals.

For one, when they launched the feature, I had a ton of fun scaring my mom by sending her a photo text of an enormous snake hanging out in our living room. She totally thought it was real!

These AR dinosaurs are just as much fun to play with. You — or your kids — will be running around the house testing the Google AR feature out.

The life-size dinos don’t always quite fit into your living space!

So how do you do it? It’s easy peasy. On your smart phone in the Google search engine or app, simply search “dinosaurs” or any of the dinos currently available. Those dinos include:

  • Ankylosaurus
  • Brachiosaurus
  • Dilophosaurus
  • Parasaurolophus
  • Pteranodon
  • Spinosaurus
  • Stegosaurus
  • Triceratops
  • Tyrannosaurus Rex
  • Velociraptor

Next, click on “view in 3D.” The feature will access your camera. Move your camera around and voila! You’ll have a dino as your guest, even if you’re social distancing.

A Sneak Peak into How AR Dinos are Made

If your kids want to know more about these AR dinosaurs, Google also shares about how they brought them to “life.” Google worked with technology from the game “Jurassic World Alive,” for one. As the Lead on Character Creations at Ludia, Camilo Sanin shared:

To create the 3D dinosaurs, our concept artists first did preliminary research to discover information about each creature. Not only did we draw research from various forms of literature, our artists also worked with paleontologists and the ‘Jurassic World’ team to make the assets as accurate and realistic as possible. Even the smallest of details, such as irregularities of skin color and patterns, are important.

Now please excuse me while I go record a video of a dinosaur chasing my kids through our backyard.

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