Cole Kaplan

Inspiration:

We were inspired by the incredible immersive outdoor experience on Snap Spectacles along with their unique social interactions
While most XR is built to keep you isolated in your home, Spectacles gives us the tools to bring people into their community

The application has three key modes:

Searching: You start in this mode, seeing all the trails and messages people have left around you. From here you have two options
Creating: You can build your own trails for others to follow, leaving footprints and message bubbles narrating your experience
Exploring: You join an existing trail and follow the path of footprints while interacting with trail specific messages and leaving your own

How we built it:

We built this on Snap Spectacles using their new feature of Anchor Points that allow objects to exist geospacially across sessions
In addition we make use of their persistent storage to record everyone's messages so that other users can play them back
By comparing the user's position to detected Anchor Points around them, we can craft their AR journey right in front of their eyes

Challenges we ran into:

The key challenge was designing an experience with easy controls that does not hinder your interaction with the world
We place minimal graphics on screen, just a trailhead marker, footprints on the ground, and floating message bubbles
All other interaction is through voice commands using the Spectacles advanced voice recognition (with an expandable UI for those that prefer it)

What's next for Footprints:

1. Add photos or 3d scans to show what a path looked like at different periods of time or in different seasons
2. Increase vibrance of footsteps based on how many people have gone on that path
3. Apply this technology to countless fields such as creating running paths, guided tours, hikes, and even as an improvement to directions