Mobile AR Product: Custom Crop Report

One of our AR/VR Today community members, Prabuddha Paul, provided us with a write-up of the project Custom Crop Report for their client, Bayer.

"Bayer wanted have a report sent out to their partners who use their products, but this time they wanted it to be much more engaging and fun than regular printed reports or even a PDF that was sent as email. So their agency recommended them to create a report that was delivered through a WebAR experience. Naturally they decided to go forward with it and we were brought onboard to produce the experience.

"The clients had pre-approved the visual & interactions concept for the AR experience & 8th Wall was selected as the tech platform to work with for its native Web AR capabilities and also the fact that it has image/ QR code recognition inbuilt. The partners and internal stakeholders of Bayer were going to be sent a printed flyer which has a printed QR code, which when scanned through almost any mobile camera with QR code reader, would trigger the link which activates the AR experience on most mobile browsers (iOS, android).

"When we started off producing the AR experience, we had to be very careful about the appearance of the crops & soil, as that’s something that represented the quality of Bayer’s products. We worked closely with the clients to make sure the 3D representations were accurate and matched the idea of what they wanted to communicate. As AR is relatively a new digital format, we all knew that we have to be careful with the UX to make sure that all of the functionalities are easily accessible and the overall experience is not overwhelming to users who aren’t tech natives. Hence we put a lot of effort into onboarding the user once the experience is activated, like the step-by-step illustration of how to use the experience that pops up at the beginning of the experience, the arrows around the cards that lets the users know that the cards can be swiped and also the voice-over which instructs the users how to use it.

"Overall this was a challenging project to execute successfully as WebAR is a standard that’s being currently built out and constantly updated, but overall we had a lot of fun working on it!"

Here’s a demonstration video which shows the project’s capabilities:

Upcoming Event: Extended Reality Solutions for Corporates

Here’s an insight into the event by one of our AR/VR Today community members, Michael Reisser.

We are excited to announce the World Class Corporate Extended Reality on September 24th and 25th in Frankfurt, Germany.

Meet the key players of the Corporate Extended Reality like Lufthansa, Siemens, Heijmans, Volkswagen, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Adidas, MAN, EDF Energy and many more. Among other experts like Marc Langsteiner from Lufthansa give the complete picture of the situation, development, and opportunities in Corporate Extended Reality Solutions.

Get the inside knowledge and best practices to boost your business by diving into the Extended Reality Age, implementing solutions that will give your enterprise the best ROI. Do not miss this unique opportunity!

You can reserve a place at the event with the 30% partner discount using the code ‘ARVRToday’ and book here!

Read more about the event and have a look at the agenda: World Class Corporate Extended Reality 2019

Snap’s Spectacles 3 are made for augmented reality

The social service has unveiled Spectacles 3 glasses that include dual HD cameras to capture scenes in 3D and introduce augmented reality Snapchat effects to moments where they weren’t previously an option. You can add 3D filters to your walk, take pseudo-3D still shots of your friends and add 3D Lens effects to a bike ride.

The new Spectacles, limited edition and with fewer produced than in previous versions, allows Snap to continue experimenting with augmented reality, a key focus for it.

Snap ships the new eyewear in the fall and will cost $380, with pre-orders available now.

Upcoming Event: Oculus Connect 6

Oculus Connect 6 will be held September 25 & 26 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in California.

Oculus says that it’s inviting developers to “join us to begin a new chapter of virtual and augmented reality,” which sounds pretty exciting and could signal anything from a major new hardware reveal to some substantial new software or services.

Speakers and any other event hallmarks have not been announced yet either. If Oculus Connect agendas from previous years are a measuring stick, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is likely to lead the keynote, with other key talks or keynote contributions from Oculus Chief Scientist Michael Abrash and CTO John Carmack can be expected.

You can find out more about the event here.

Here’s what happens on Apple’s augmented reality walks

Apple debuted its AR[T] augmented reality walks in several cities around the world over the weekend.

The walks take place from Apple Stores in San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. They boast augmented reality demos created by world renowned artists.

One of CNBC‘s writers joined a walk in San Francisco:

“Over about two hours, we walked from the store to an alley, across Market Street to Yerba Buena Gardens, and to a historic church and back …

We’d walk to a location, like Maiden Lane, a cute little alley in downtown San Francisco. Then, we were told to find and point our phones at a ‘marker’ like a sign, which allows the phone to place digital objects and creatures in the real world by giving the phone a point to orient the graphics around. Once you scan the marker — feeling a little haptic pulse when it’s locked in — then you get a few minutes to walk around and experience the art.

At the end of each art piece, the guide asked us to all put our loaner phones together, then the guide would press buttons on his iPad, and all the phones would shut off, turn to black, and we’d be asked to put it in our pockets so we could walk to the next location.”

Each walk is guided by an Apple Store employee. People who go on the walk get to borrow an iPhone XS Max and pair of Beats Solo headphones. It is not possible to use your personal iPhone.

You can read more about the experience here.

Facebook’s AR dev toolkit exits closed beta on Instagram

Facebook announced today that it’s opening its closed beta of Spark AR on Instagram, letting any developer build and share an augmented reality filter on the platform.

The company announced this change was coming at its F8 keynote earlier this year.

Phone-based AR isn’t the piping-hot platform it was when Mark Zuckerberg devoted the top-half of his 2017 F8 keynote to highlighting the company’s AR Camera Effects platform, but two-and-a-half years later the company is ready to let more developers give it a whirl.

The source notes that filters and effects created using the Spark AR app can show up in a few ways on Instagram. For instance, if a user is following someone that has shared effects on the platform, they may pop up in the user’s effects tray in the camera section of the app.

You can read more about the news here.