Combining Augmented Reality with a traditional Masked Ball, this was the concept that Solarflare Studio collaborated on with Head of House. Could we create a system where guests would be able to see each other dressed in fantastic augmented masks as they freely walked around…?
After some initial ideas sessions, we settled on the Magic Leap AR glasses as these provided most of the capability we needed, optical see-through AR, 6DOF tracking, in a wireless (almost) package.
With help from Magic Leap, we used an early version of their Unity SDK, which allowed multiple headsets to share a common world alignment. By transmitting each user’s position and orientation over WiFi to all the other headsets, we were able to render the augmented masks in the correct place, such that the other guests appeared to be wearing the masks.
The digital masks were created using TiltBrush, a VR sketching application, which enabled them to have a freehand, organic feel. Several animal-themed masks were created.
The project was developed to a POC stage with a working prototype application and a solid understanding of what it would take to produce a commercial solution. This was very advanced at the time, we hadn’t come across any other examples of multiple users wearing AR glasses, seeing each other in a shared augmented space.
More information can be found at Solarflare
Case Study video
Mask being sketched in TiltBrush
Early POC, sharing tracking spaces between headsets.