The Sun in UK newspaper first with augmented reality poster

Icons representing the various events and locations of London 2012 frame an aerial view of the Olympic Village. When viewers capture the A3 image on their smartphone or augmented reality-enabled tablet, a live picture appears on the screen with a helicopter acting as a mouse to view each icon.

iPhone owners can use The Sun’s app to translate the image, but other technologies can access the motion picture through the Aurasma Lite app.

Users can follow through each icon to be taken to The Sun’s website, which will provide daily updates on the Olympics depending on which icon the viewer selects.

The poster was developed in association with augmented reality app developers Fuerte International and printed at Newsprinter's Broxbourne site.

The Sun digital editor Derek Brown described the creation of the poster as a "long and painful process", which began in January and reached completion last month.

He said: "The Sun is very interested in enhancing its newspaper with digital content and this development brings the website and newspaper together nicely."

Brown confirmed that the newspaper would carry on developing similar digital supplements due to the success of the current poster. The Sun is working on integrating Aurasma Lite into its own app for Android and tablets, but the iPhone is currently the only platform supported by The Sun’s app.

Brown added: "For an event like the Olympics in our home country, we needed to develop something as incredible as this."

The Sun editor Dominic Mohan said: "On the momentous day that the London 2012 Games officially open I am thrilled that we have won gold by being the first to have an augmented reality poster."