Leading augmented reality (AR) technology company Blippar has today confirmed its commitment to putting power in the hands of creators with the launch of its WebAR SDK technology. The toolkit will empower AR creators to build their own immersive WebAR experiences from the ground up using HTML and Java coding.
WebAR SDK users will have access to full 24/7 support from the Blippar team to help hone their creative campaigns, and, during its beta phase, the platform will be entirely free to use, create, and publish from – with its immersive WebAR experiences able to be accessed and shared across platforms including browsers, Facebook, TikTok, WeChat, and WhatsApp – a further step in ensuring access to AR creativity is available to everyone.
Blippar’s WebAR SDK includes its most advanced implementation of simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) to date, boasting 99% accuracy on tracking when locked, with less than a 1% margin of error in angular accuracy. SLAM is a set of computer vision technologies that allow AR developers and creatives to build much more interactive, immersive, and realistic AR experiences by using the device camera to create a mesh of the user’s surroundings that includes floors, walls, ceilings, and other objects. This allows the SDK to track the user’s environment and make everything in it an interactive element, as well as locking AR elements in place relative to the environment.
In 2016, Blippar pioneered the creation of WebAR, allowing creators to easily deliver and scale AR experiences through a webpage, or by scanning a QR code, opening up access to AR by removing the need for the user to download an app. Until now, Blippar’s WebAR technology has only been available through its AR creation and publishing platform, BlippBuilder; a no code platform which enables AR rendering in a web browser through SLAM.
The AR industry is booming, with the recent AR-friendly iPhone updates from Apple, Xiaomi, Snap, and Facebook’s ongoing development of AR hardware explaining why the market is estimated to be worth $50billion by 2024. New and innovative use cases are emerging daily; from enabling retail customers to try their choices before they buy, test driving a new car, to training surgeons in life saving techniques. Blippar is at the forefront of AR innovation; in the last twelve months global brands including OnePlus, Corona, and T-Mobile have delivered highly creative and immersive AR experiences through Blippar’s in-house creative capability, StudioB. In March, the company announced a pre-Series A funding round, which has been used to further develop the company’s industry-leading technology to give creators even greater access to powerful AR design technology, such as WebAR SDK.
Blippar CEO Faisal Galaria commented: “We believe the world is a better place with more creators. Blippar is focused on making AR widely accessible, and putting the most powerful AR creation tools in the hands of brands, agencies, and developers. With our new WebAR SDK we’re enabling creatives and developers to build and publish their own WebAR experiences from scratch, anchored with our most advanced SLAM technology to date. Not only have we made WebAR SDK easy to use, but we’ve made the pricing intuitive and accessible. We’re excited to see how our users push the boundaries of AR even further.”
Mark Whelan, Chief Creative Officer of global media group Havas, said: “This is a really exciting moment for creativity. It is now in the hands of creatives to literally bring their ideas to life through immersive, interactive campaigns. AR is uniting creativity, technology, and media to deliver really compelling and engaging brand experiences to consumers.”
Charlie Fink, XR Consultant, columnist, and author, commented: “We are in the early days of understanding what the metaverse will be, but what we do know is that developers will need fully featured, web-based cross platform AR content creation platforms for it to become reality. A free WebAR SDK like Blippar, which combines SLAM, tracking and computer vision, is sure to grab the attention of developers.”
Pete Lau, CEO and co-founder of Oneplus, said: “Every brand wants to get closer to their consumers, and AR is the perfect way to do so. Blippar’s new WebAR SDK technology will transform our marketing – we’ll be able to rethink digital marketing, product launches, and the entire purchase experience.”
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