AR Typographic Sculpting
2018, ARKit, Unity, C#, OpenType.js
AR Typographic Sculpting was made for Fall’18 "Computational Approaches to Typography" and "Magic Windows and Mixed-Up Realities" taught in NYU ITP.
Inspiration: Zach Lieberman’s work with typography & @transform3D_
More on technical development here, or see the Github repository.
What if graffiti was collaborative and 3D?
AR adds an additional layer to spaces that we inhabit. A good AR experience, in my opinion, should be grounded on the ways we inhabit spaces. There should be an element of physicality, locality, and community.
AR Typographic Sculpting is a location-specific, collaborative sculpting experience. Users can three-dimensionally morph (sculpt) letterforms of location names by selecting a vertex and move it around by physically moving around their device. The app automatically saves the morphed coordinates to a database, so that the sculpture maintains its modified shape over time.
Initial design of the app
As of now, there is a single view mode, in which the letterforms become tracks for neon lights.
For future iterations, there are some areas I would like to improve:
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Blurring or darkening of camera feed.
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An onboarding screen where the user is prompted to detect a plane
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Animation for spawning the letterforms
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Different view modes. Explore the poetic expressions of an AR sculpture. Physics, particle systems, locally unique data, etc.