India is one of the fastest growing regions for Augmented Reality technology, a top Facebook executive said on Tuesday. The Menlo Park, California-based company said it was working with Indian start-ups, creators and developers to use its ‘AR Studio’ that allows them to bring their most imaginative augmented reality ideas to life.
“We are providing tools like our AR Studio for developers and creators to help them create unique and stunning experiences that are fun, immersive, interactive and highly engaging,” said Satyajeet Singh, Head of Platform Partnerships, Facebook India and South Asia, at a company event here.
AR has the potential to bring digital overlays of contextual information or special effects onto the physical world either through an AR headset or by using the camera on a phone or tablet.
Facebook said with its AR Studio, creators can create new unique experiences without using any new hardware or specialised apps. The studio helps create experiences that are moving well beyond animations, masks and playful enhancements, to more immersive and interactive 3D experiences.
“We are looking to partner with Facebook now to bring these AR effects into our brand pages, feed and stories on Facebook,” said Jeyandran Venugopal, CTO of online fashion retailer Myntra. Mr.Venugopal said that Myntra had already deployed experiences on its own such as the AR shoe size finder, AR T-shirts, virtual try-on experience for makeup with great results.
Adhvith Dhuddu, founder and CEO of AliveNow, a young venture, said that AR studio had opened up unique possibilities to build interesting AR experiences for brands and 1.5 billion users on Facebook. For instance, South Korean cosmetics brand Laneige has partnered with AliveNow, to roll out a Facebook augmented reality (AR) camera filter to promote its products.
Another start-up, Superfan, said it made a camera effect for the Hindi film ‘Sanju’ which went viral and helped them in creating pre and post-event engagement.
“FB’s AR opens up an avenue for fans to experience the film’s journey really up close and personal and deepens our relationship with our audiences in a meaningful manner,” said Shikha Kapur, chief marketing officer, Fox Star Studios, the motion picture production and distribution company.
Small companies like Sportz Interactive used face tracker and bone scripting capabilities of AR Studio to build camera effect for IPL 2018. The effect tracks the face and places the team kit on the user.
