Niantic launches Lightship VPS for Web: bringing the Real-World Metaverse to the browser | News

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 22, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Niantic at present introduced the launch of Lightship VPS for Web, making the online an much more highly effective place for augmented actuality by bringing its visible positioning system (VPS) to the eighth Wall platform. This primary-of-its-kind browser-based expertise connects the actual world with the digital one by anchoring WebAR content material to areas and enabling digital objects to work together with the house they’re in. This makes the augmented actuality expertise really feel extra private, extra significant and extra actual, and provides customers new causes to discover the world round them.

Lightship VPS for Web transforms on a regular basis areas into experiential locations. The expertise provides new which means to areas by unlocking its digital twin which might be augmented to create an infinite quantity of extraordinary experiences. This drives site visitors to a particular location, similar to a statue in a park or a storefront in a metropolis, to thrill and have interaction customers in model new ways in which lead to actual world worth. Utilizing the eighth Wall platform, builders, businesses, and types can create WebAR experiences which might solely be engaged with at one location, strengthening the should be at a sure place, or AR experiences that can be utilized at any variety of VPS-activated areas on Niantic’s AR map, growing the attain for this content material. They’ll additionally create multi-location experiences similar to AR scavenger hunts and geo AR video games by combining a variety of VPS-activated experiences inside one mission.

“At Niantic, we believe that the real-world metaverse should get people exploring and connecting in the world around them,” says John Hanke, CEO of Niantic. “Bringing Lightship VPS to the Web is a critical step forward for AR, enabling developers to realistically fuse digital content to the real world with precision and persistence. The early demos from partners around the world are exciting to see and we know this is only the beginning. We can’t wait to see what location-based AR experiences our developer community will create with this new service.”

Builders at present wish to construct immersive AR experiences rooted in real-world areas. To take action, they need to first perceive precisely the place their customers are and what they’re . Lightship VPS makes use of Niantic’s AR map of the world to anchor AR content material with centimeter-level precision at areas worldwide. By bringing this highly effective system to the eighth Wall platform, builders can now create VPS-enabled AR experiences with unprecedented accuracy and precision that work immediately throughout the cell browser, requiring no app to obtain.

Along with enabling subsequent stage location-based AR experiences, Lightship VPS for Web additionally provides WebAR builders, for the primary time, entry to the 3D mesh of a location to be used in an AR scene. This game-changing functionality permits builders to create WebAR experiences that make use of occlusion and physics and provides a larger stage of interactivity between digital objects and the bodily world. This leads to an immersive and lifelike AR expertise we’ve got by no means earlier than seen within the browser that may be accessed on any iOS or Android smartphone, together with non-LiDAR enabled units.

“Today marks a major milestone for the web and augmented reality,” says Tom Emrich, Director of Product Administration, eighth Wall at Niantic. “Lightship VPS unlocks extraordinary value for developers by offering them a new tool to create WebAR experiences that recognize not only where their users are in the world but also gives them access to relevant information to better integrate the virtual content with the place it is being experienced. This is another first for the browser, unlocked by Niantic’s 8th Wall platform, and makes WebAR feel more real, more personal and even more connected to the real world than ever before.”

Builders can add VPS-activated areas to Niantic’s AR map, or instantly make use of over 100,000 VPS-activated areas out there at launch, to construct their very own location-based WebAR experiences. VPS-activated areas are usually not simply streetscapes or public landmarks, however moderately a set of publically accessible locations that embrace parks, paths, native companies, and extra. Constructed collectively, as a group, Niantic’s AR map is powered by scans of real-world areas from builders, surveyors, and gamers. The group has contributed hundreds of thousands of areas, images, and scans, important information that make it doable to serve localization with Lightship VPS. This stage of element ensures that customers can confidently localize at a VPS-activated location, throughout numerous occasions of day, and seasons of the yr. Builders can discover, create, and develop with VPS-activated areas, together with authoring and simulating their AR expertise remotely, throughout the Geospatial Browser within the eighth Wall platform.

Lightship VPS for Web is now out there to all eighth Wall builders. Builders can begin creating with Lightship VPS for Web by logging into their eighth Wall Workspace or signing up for a 14-day free trial at www.8thwall.com. Uncover a few of the first Lightship VPS for Web experiences created by eighth Wall builders for VPS-activated areas in Tokyo, Paris, London, Vienna, Sydney, New York, Los Angeles and extra at www.8thwall.com/discover.

About Niantic

Niantic builds augmented actuality expertise that powers the real-world metaverse. Our Lightship platform is the world’s first scaled AR platform, enabling builders all over the world to create subtle AR experiences for telephones and finally AR glasses. Lightship can be the inspiration for Niantic’s hit video games, together with Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom and Ingress. For extra info, go to nianticlabs.com and @nianticlabs.

eighth Wall is Niantic Inc.’s award-winning WebAR developer platform and laptop imaginative and prescient expertise stack that makes it doable to construct interactive web-based augmented actuality (WebAR) that may be skilled on any smartphone—no app required. eighth Wall WebAR experiences might be accessed and engaged by over 5 billion smartphones throughout iOS and Android in addition to computer systems and AR/VR headsets. So far, the eighth Wall platform has powered over 2,000 business experiences for prime manufacturers throughout business verticals and is utilized by hundreds of builders to create branded and first-party net AR content material. The eighth Wall platform has been utilized by businesses and manufacturing studios to create AR activations for well-known manufacturers from firms throughout business verticals, together with Pepsi, Microsoft, Nike, Porsche, Netflix, Heineken, LEGO, Normal Mills, Dior, Common Photos, Westfield, Verizon and extra. Study extra about eighth Wall at www.8thwall.com.

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Media Contact Diana Mendez dianamendez@nianticlabs.com Advertising Supervisor