Snapchat announced the launch of a new AR project called Monumental Perspectives, which lets Snapchat users view five augmented reality artworks placed across Los Angeles.
The project is a collaboration between Snapchat and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The AR monuments have been by created artists and technologists who are part of the Snap Lens Creators, with the intention to “celebrate diverse histories across Los Angeles, in an effort to offer more inclusive perspectives from communities across the region.”
Each of the monuments focuses on a different perspective. Here’s a description from Snapchat:
The five virtual monuments and murals include Mercedes Dorame’s immersive portal between past, present, and future worlds for Indigenous presence in contemporary Tovaangar (Los Angeles), I.R. Bach’s animations designed to inspire self-reflection, Glenn Kaino’s path of generational stories of connectedness along the 1932 L.A. Olympic marathon route, Ruben Ochoa’s homage to the shared history of street vendors in L.A., and Ada Pinkston’s memorial series paying tribute to Biddy Mason.
The launch of the monuments coincides with International Day for Monuments and Sites, which is this coming Sunday April 18. If you’re around LA, you’ll be able to spot physical signage at the monuments’ locations, including the LACMA campus and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. They will also be marked on Snap Map, so those in the city can easily find each location.
If you’re not in LA, you’ll still be able to take part and view the monuments on Snapchat itself — you’ll just have to place them in AR using your camera, and won’t be able to view them on the actual sites.
Augmented reality (AR) is being used in all sorts of ways, from entertainment to education. Today, Snap Inc. has announced a collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) that sees artists create AR monuments exploring some of the histories of Los Angeles communities.
The initiative is called LACMA × Snapchat: Monumental Perspectives and uses Snapchat’s AT tech so that app users can view five virtual monuments built by artists and Snap Lens Creators.
Mercedes Dorame’s Portal to Tovaanger built with Sutu (Snap Lens Creator)
I.R. Bach’s Think Big built with James Hurlbut (Snap Lens Creator)
Glenn Kaino’s No Finish Line built with Michael French (Snap Lens Creator)
Ruben Ochoa’s ¡Vendedores, Presente! built with Sallia Goldstein (Snap Lens Creator)
Ada Pinkston’s The Open Hand is Blessed built with Charles Hamblen and Sutu (Snap Lens Creators)
Originally, they were designed to be experienced at locations around Los Angeles, highlighting the regions from where they drew their inspiration. The virtual monuments appear as markers if you’re in the region. Those that aren’t in LA can still enjoy LACMA × Snapchat: Monumental Perspectives at home via the app or by heading to LACMA’s website.
“LACMA and our partners at Snapchat are fundamentally interested in storytelling, but in new and innovative ways, and that’s what many artists are interested in as well,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director in a statement. “The resulting monuments visualized by Mercedes Dorame, I.R. Bach, Glenn Kaino, Ruben Ochoa, and Ada Pinkston are not only relevant to issues of today—Los Angeles, civic space, community – but also to the medium of art, opening doors to new ways of thinking about art in both physical and virtual spaces.”
“Through this collaboration with LACMA, Snap Inc.’s augmented reality technology has become an immersive medium for advocacy and representation. We’re thrilled to empower these artists and Lens Creators, and support their desire to share untold stories through a new perspective,” said Bobby Murphy, co-founder and CTO at Snap Inc.
This is all part of a multi-year initiative that was launched last year by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Monuments Project is a five-year, $250 million USD programme aimed at transforming how US history is showcased in public spaces. As such, Monumental Perspectives will be expanded in the coming years to include additional artists. For the latest updates on this story, keep reading VRFocus.
Wie ein Bericht von The Information zeigt, arbeitet Snapchat angeblich an einer neuen Version seiner Spectacles, welche mit AR-Funktionen ausgestattet werden soll.
Snapchat Spectacles mit AR-Funktionen
Seit 2016 verkauft Snapchat seine Kamerabrille Spectacles. Die mittlerweile dritte Generation der Spectacles-Brille nimmt Videos aus der Ego-Perspektive auf, verfügt aber über kein Display. Das aufgenommene Video muss auf einem Smartphone oder anderswo abgespielt werden und der Nutzer kann nachträglich Snapchat AR-Filter hinzufügen.
Mit der neuen Version der Spectacles soll sich dies ändern, wenn man der Quelle von The Information trauen kann. Das Magazin bezieht sich bei seinem Report auf eine Quelle, die vertraut mit den Plänen von Snapchat sei, ohne einen Namen zu nennen. Somit ist die News mit Vorsicht zu genießen, auch wenn die Pläne durchaus realistisch klingen.
Snapchat was one of the earliest and strongest proponents of augmented reality (VR) in social media, from now common applications such as adding cute animal features to the world-facing Lenses. Today, the company has announced a new set of innovative Lenses which provide full body tracking functionality.
Launching over 10 3D full body tracking Lenses via the Snapchat platform, you can dress up as a purple pumpkin for Halloween, wear a green skeleton cloak, don a hot dog costume if the need takes you, unleash a giant tarantula or or use the Scary Face lens to shock a few people.
The new tracking technology works across platforms, whether you’re an iOS or Android owner, captured by both the front and rear-facing cameras. Able to track 18 joints on the human body and then apply the digital models to follow the person’s movements, seven of the new Lenses overlay a full-body costume whilst the rest add AR characters next to the person in the camera’s view, following their movements.
All these new Lenses can be found in Snapchat’s Lens Explorer which features a wide content selection created by the company and the public via Lens Studio, Snap’s free desktop-based app. These new full-body Lenses were created internally with the public version of Lens Studio unable to offer the option at the moment, this may change in the future.
Mobile AR has grow massively over the last few years with Snapchat saying: “more than 180 million Snapchatters engage with AR daily — nearly 30 times every day,” in a press release. This has been aided by platforms like Apple’s ARCore and Google’s ARKit, allowing lots of new developers to enter the space. This has seen Snoop Dog and 19 Crimes create AR wine, Felix & Paul Studios reveal work on an AR book of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: The Seven Ravens, and even CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher is getting an AR videogame.
As further AR advancements are made, VRFocus will keep you updated.
The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the use of virtual reality and augmented reality, experts say, especially in retail, education and health.
Taylor Freeman
“The trajectory is clear that this technology is set to become the next ubiquitous computing platform, much like we saw with mobile devices and personal computers,” Taylor Freeman, founder of Axon Park, an extended reality training simulation platform, told Hypergrid Business.
“Gaming has seen a large uptick in playtime and sales,” he said, “and personal well-being, with meditation and mindfulness apps.”
But the biggest growth areas are health care and education, he said, as well as events and conferences that have moved from in-person events to virtual reality.
And WaveXR just raised $30 million for its virtual events platform, which proves there are unique opportunities for augmented and mixed reality in the event space, as conventions, concerts and conferences start to move digital, Cory Grenier, CEO of Genee — an augmented reality authoring and publishing platform, told Hypergrid Business.
Dave Dolan
The growth is expected to continue after the pandemic. According to a May report by Vynz Research, the virtual and augmented reality market will grow from $22 billion of revenue this year to $161 billion by 2025.
“We are also seeing a surge in many other areas, such as showrooms, remote training and walk-throughs,” Dave Dolan, chief product officer at virtual reality education platform Veative, told Hypergrid Business. “Just in the last two months, we have seen a 30 to 40 percent increase in demand for remote training.”
Retail shopping and advertising
Seek XR, an extended reality company whose augmented reality platform is used by companies to increase sales and to create interactive customer experiences as well as for interactive learning, has noted a 600 percent increase in usage of augmented reality through its customers’ websites since the beginning of March when much of physical retail shut down.
Jon Cheney
To date, Seek XR has deployed more than 10 million experiences to over 100 million users.
And the company reports increases of between 10 200 percent in its corporate clients’ conversion rates — that’s the percent of visitors who turn into paying customers.
“Product returns are dropping by 25 percent and time to make buying decisions has been cut in half,” Seek XR CEO Jon Cheney told Hypergrid Business. “Augmented reality is making impacts with real return on investment that can’t be ignored, even without the looming fears of coronavirus.”
Some of these schools are turning to virtual and augmented reality to help address the needs of these students.
This was a challenge for some platforms, since students don’t usually have VR headsets at home.
Veative now has own virtual reality headset to diversify their products. (Image courtesy Veative.)
One such company, Veative, offers virtual reality-based STEM educational content, serving over 200 schools in more than 24 countries.
During the pandemic, the reported an increase in use — but only after they started to offer web-based mixed reality content that didn’t require that students have virtual reality headsets.
“We managed to pivot and offer our virtual reality content on web-based extended reality,” said Veative’s Dolan. “Schools have welcomed it and we expect to double our user base by the end of summer.”
Other organizations are responding to the challenge by issuing headsets to at-home users, especially enterprises using virtual reality for training.
Nathan Pettyjohn
“Lenovo’s ThinkReality team is receiving more customer inquiries specifically as a response to the global pandemic,” Nathan Pettyjohn, commercial augmented and virtual reality lead at Lenovo’s Intelligent Devices Group told Hypergrid Business. “Companies are looking for solutions to enhance their workforces through training and re-skilling with immersive virtual reality experiences or using augmented reality to enable workers to do more remotely or be more productive with fewer workers on site.”
It is supported by Lenovo’s ThinkReality software platform, on which companies and enterprises can deploy and manage applications and content.
Healthcare
During the pandemic, companies in healthcare are using virtual and augmented reality for health-based learning, simulation such as surgery, VR-based treatments, and remote monitoring of patients.
XRHealth, for example, has added 500 clinicians on-board its platform and between 500 to 1000 new active patients per month as a result of the pandemic.
The extended reality health company now runs extended reality clinics in 17 states in the United States, with certification from the Federal Drug Administration,
“During this time, both clinicians and patients are seeking out alternative and remote methods for treating various conditions,” company CEO Eran Orr told Hypergrid Business. “Extended reality is a unique platform that is designed to treat so many conditions like pain management, anxiety, memory loss, and hot flashes — and we have experienced a significant spike in interest during COVID-19.”
XRHealth supplies patients with virtual reality headsets.
“Our challenge is keeping up with the demand and letting others benefit from our solution, now that we are out there,” said Orr. “Many patients have expressed that they have been getting better results from using our platform than from in-person therapy since their time with clinicians is completely focused on them without the outside noise that comes with being in-person.”
Snap says augmented reality will be foundation for next major shift in technology
Snap, the company behind Snapchat, has revealed plans for a fully fledged digital platform taking on not only Facebook but also Google and Apple.
The company is launching an app store, expanding its games platform and offering the facility for external developers to upload machine-learning models to build augmented reality experiences. It is allowing other apps to integrate its camera software for the first time, and incorporating businesses into its maps alongside users’ friends.
Snap says augmented reality will be foundation for next major shift in technology
Snap, the company behind Snapchat, has revealed plans for a fully fledged digital platform taking on not only Facebook but also Google and Apple.
The company is launching an app store, expanding its games platform and offering the facility for external developers to upload machine-learning models to build augmented reality experiences. It is allowing other apps to integrate its camera software for the first time, and incorporating businesses into its maps alongside users’ friends.
While augmented reality hardware hasn’t yet taken off with average consumers, Snapchat is among several smartphone apps that have succeeded in introducing basic forms of AR to millions of people, using camera “lenses” to add digital effects and objects to real-world scenes. Developer Snap released the Lens Web Builder, a tool that simplifies the process of building AR effects to help more companies create AR promotions.
The concept behind Lens Web Builder is fairly simple: Instead of requiring a standalone AR app or a high level of design expertise — prior requisites for lens creation — Snap has created a basic but functional tool that can be accessed from common web browsers, letting users create a new lens in minutes without AR design experience. In addition to hundreds of Snap-supplied assets, including 3D objects, effects, and animations, creators can upload 2D assets, such as logos and images, for personalization. The custom lens is then available for use in Snapchat ad campaigns, subject to daily minimum spending requirements.
Democratizing the creation process is an important next step for augmented reality, which is expected to become a major part of daily life over the next several years. Early consumer AR glasses will be shipping this year, bringing wearable display technologies out of labs and enterprise settings and into public spaces, where they’re expected to power everything from intuitive map navigation to advertising. In the meantime, companies unfamiliar with the technology or daunted by the AR creation process can use tools such as Lens Web Builder to get up to speed.
Snap notes that over 75% of its community of 218 million daily active users now engage with AR content every day on average, and over 735,000 lenses have already been created, with top lenses achieving billions of views. That’s all been accomplished using Snap’s prior Lens Studio tool, which the company will continue to support for developing sophisticated AR content while offering a simpler, more accessible tool in Lens Web Builder.
Although it’s still best known as a social media network, Snapchat has rapidly become a leader in real-time augmented reality effects, thanks to Lenses that alter the look of people and landmarks. This week the app is adding two ground replacement Lenses to the mix, enabling users to swap solid pavement, carpeting, or other terrain for bubbling lava or reflective water through a mix of segmentation technology and machine learning.
Both of the new Lenses work the same way, quickly determining which part of the camera’s live video feed is “ground” and swapping it for your preferred form of liquid — plus a little yellow caution sign. The lava version is arguably more convincing, as it uses heat haze, smoke, and particles to mask the edges of the areas it’s replacing, forming little islands of land next to the moving liquid. Snapchat’s water Lens broadly swaps almost all of the ground in front of you for reflective water, which alternates between somewhat believable and obviously artificial, depending on how well the segmentation works.
The real-time ground segmentation system uses machine learning models to understand geometry and semantics, isolating obviously ground-based objects from contrasting backgrounds. While the system does a good job outdoors, lower contrast or more blended indoor environments can lead to segmentation hiccups — generally an over-application of the effect to unwanted areas — suggesting that the machine has some more learning to do. Snapchat says the new Lenses were built using an internal version of Lens Studio and it’s considering bringing the technology to a public version in the future.
Facebook and Google have both open-sourced image segmentation tools that use computer vision to classify whole objects and individual pixels, though in Google’s case the software’s intended to run on dedicated cloud-based hardware with tensor processing units. Snapchat’s recent Lens innovations have been particularly impressive because they run in real time on common mobile devices, enabling at least semi-plausible time-warping of faces and other live augmentations of reality. The company has a deal with Verizon to use 5G for advanced AR features using high-bandwidth, low-latency connections with access to edge processing resources.
Trover Saves the Universe is out today, and we were impressedwith Squanch Games’ unique brand of humor – developed alongside Rick and Morty’s Justin Roiland. If you can’t get enough of the VR experience, you’ll also be able to take Trover Saves the Universe into AR, thanks to a partnership with Snapchat.
In order to access the AR lens in Snapchat, you’ll need to get a copy of the game. Next, just open up the Snapchat app on your phone and flip to your rear-facing camera, then point it at the game case or game’s key art image. The face on the front will begin teasing you, voiced by Justin Roiland himself.
You should then instantly gain access to the Trover Saves the Universe AR lens, turning your own face into a fever dream. Your eyes will be replaced by red and blue power baby faces like the ones in the game, and the game’s title will appear above your head. You can also scan the first scene in the VR game itself for more information. That sounds a whole lot better than turning your face into a dog or making yourself look slightly older, and it’s more likely to confuse your friends and loved ones – it’s a win-win situation.
Trover Saves the Universe is out today on PlayStation VR and will be coming to PC June 4. It also has non-VR support, both on PlayStation 4 and PC. It’s best for a slightly older audience due to some vulgar jokes, but fans of Roiland’s work on Rick and Morty will undoubtedly enjoy themselves.
