Today, Rock Paper Reality (RPR) collaborated with Google and Adobe to enhance cross-platform AR retail experiences and promote commercial XR opportunities for in-person businesses.
Patrick Johnson, CEO and Founder of Rock Paper Reality, remarked:
The potential for any brand to tell stories beyond their traditional storefront or page, elevating how their audiences discover and engage with their products in the digital realm is huge. With immersive spaces and headset use on the rise, it has never been more vital to have an omnichannel 3D strategy in place, particularly powerful with the younger generation where 3D worlds are the norm.
RPR is leveraging Google’s Geospatial Creator and Adobe Aero to bring a location-based AR customer experience to Paper Tree, a Japantown, San Francisco-based origami shop. Google is also providing its ARCore platform – which powers Geospatial Creator – and its Photorealistic 3D Tiles from Google Maps Platform to assist with the project.
Linda Mihara, Manager and part-owner of Paper Tree, noted that the AR shopping experience presents “an unprecedented way to view origami.”
Mihara explained:
It gets the viewer up close, where they can see incredible detail. The 3D animation of the Peace Sphere literally brings the Origami to life, enhancing its design
Moreover, the Paper Tree partial owner noted that the process of creating the immersive experience alongside RDR was “equally amazing.”
The RDR team went to the location to photograph the store’s origami paper to help convey the figures’ texture, colour, and “reality” as digital twins.
The store owner also noted:
Young, tech-savvy audiences are super familiar with using QR codes, so it’s very easy for them to click and start seeing origami in a fun, interactive way.
Showcasing the Potential of Retail-Based XR Experiences
Shoppers can access the AR content using a QR code, giving the organizing firms a chance to showcase the potential of retail-based XR services to consumers and potential clients.
AR retail experiences can help tourism, and commercial opportunities, therefore bringing more eyes to Japantown, says Grace Horikiri, Executive Director of Japantown Community Benefit District.
Horikiri explained:
The Adobe Aero 3D Paper Tree Experience is an innovative and exciting attraction not only for Paper Tree but Japantown as well. It’s going to put us on the map and hopefully bring more visitors to this cultural destination which will help the surrounding small business continue to thrive.
The AR-enhanced storefront project showcases how brands could easily design and place an immersive customer experience in a store of choice, saving money in several ways.
A marketing or brand team could leverage RPR, Google, and Adobe XR services – as seen during its showcase – to create an engaging in-store AR experience without spending money on physical assets and transportation of advertising items. Also, using Google’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles, developers do not need to visit a location to scan it and create suitable content.
Leveraging Powerful Adobe Software
Preston Platt, CTO and Founder of Rock Paper Reality added that leveraging Adobe’s” powerful tools has been a game changer.”
According to the RPR representative, the Adobe toolset allows the firm to elevate workflows, achieving “new heights of speed and efficiency.”
Platt also noted:
The Substance 3D suite in particular has become an indispensable part of our toolkit, allowing us to texture with precision using Painter, swiftly sample textures with Sampler, and seamlessly pre-visualize our projects with Stager.
James Zachary, XR Creative Lead of 3Di at Adobe, remarked that working with RPR unveiled a “transformative location-based experience in San Francisco’s Japantown celebrating the community of retailers that have been there for generations.”
Zachary explained how geolocated experiences provide “new opportunities for brands and retailers” to virtually connect with customers in-store to introduce them to products and services in ways “that drive foot traffic, repeat visitation and leave an indelible mark of awe.”
Moreover, developers working to create emerging customer experience services can work from anywhere worldwide, thanks to Adobe’s democratization of its XR SDK.
IOS and Android users can create and use immersive shopping experiences on Adobe Aero, continuing to drive the XR developer talent pool upwards when the space desperately needs it.
Moreover, Zachary also noted that it has never been easier for XR developers to use Adobe Aero for creating and delivering geospatial AR content.
Zachary added:
It’s as simple as scanning a QR code and launching into an extraordinary experience without the fuss of downloading and installing an app. Bringing geospatial augmented reality to your fingertips like never before.
More on Google Geospatial
Google’s Geospatial platform is a trusted AR toolset behind many smartphone-based immersive applications and services.
Moreover, Geospatial provides a rich dataset based on Google’s over 15-year-old records from Google Maps and Streetview – providing a brilliant foundation for any location-based XR service.
Geospatial Creator contains tools to help XR developers at any level design sophisticated AR content – ready for brand or marketing campaigns.
Stevan Silva, Senior Product Manager, Google AR, noted that Geospatial Creator allows brands and creators to “easily design location-based augmented experiences.”
Silva also remarked how it was “incredible” to see Paper Tree’s locational transform via its use of AR and the tools from RPR, Google, and Adobe, explaining how AR-retail use cases like Paper Tree’s opens “new possibilities for their business to connect with people of all ages, share their crafts and express their creativity.”