PopulAR is an independent ecosystem powering AR, VR, MR
content creation as a means to popularize these technologies
PopulAR Studio is a global, award-winning, Spatial Studio with a track record of working for major AR technologies, assisting top brands, institutions and startups in the space in their XR content strategy and production.
PopulAR Planets is an independent digital hub that has been supporting a community of 40k+ Creative technologists in creating meaningful AR, MR and VR experiences on any technology between 2020 and 2024.
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MANIFESTO
Our independent community has kept growing, supporting around 30k creators at the time Snap AR has reached out to request 8 assets from our community hub's asset store to be integrated directly within Lens Studio -the AR authoring tool with the biggest community of creators.
Huge milestone and recognition for our work on our independent community.
A social good campaign commissioned by BDDFoundation and Monki to raise awareness about a petition prompting politics to regulate about Filter Dysmorphia. Strong from our brand and community, we selected top female AR artists to create 3 filters to support the campaign and used all of our platforms to sensibilise the AR creator community. The campaign led to a unheard success as the signature of the petitions has gone beyond our ambition and led a British politician to introduce a bill to regulate on the topic at the House of Commons.
Implementation of AR technology and production of 5 abstract garments to be tried-on H&M mobile app
In an effort to learn more about the interoperability state-of-the art, we developed our first piece of proprietary content with a public an educative utility: AiR, a real-time air quality visualizer made to help people understand better this invisible threat that kills more than tobacco, HIV or war.
Following the excitment of reaching profitability on our second accounting year and the development of our R&D skills, we decided to invest our profits in making in-house products
Following the scale of our revenues we have reached profitability through our studio revenues thanks to the scale of our R&D jobs and our first consulting gig. While our community has been self sustained economically
As experimental features and products were seeing light in various technologies, we've got commissioned to work on many advanced projects such as Camera kit packs for Snap AR, multiplayer AR for Fb Messenger and the first experiences on Meta AI glasses. Adding three world firsts to our backpack
Following demands to develop state of the art experiences for brands like Dior and Orange in Web AR, we identified flaws in the opensource repository of 8thWall to which we contributed with a pull request on our first job
Following our work in AR Fashion we have been commissioned by Snap inc to create state of the art piece to present at NYC fall Fashion Week, while we also have been tasked to create an AR Art walk for Dubai World expo around the Women Pavillon for the partnership between Meta and Cartier. Developing a new feature on Spark AR along the way: Spatial Audio
After already working together on a couple of advanced projects in 2020, DanceFight offered us the chance to lead a strategic consultancy to address the implementation of their content in the immersive space with three main projects: installing an AR SDK on their mobile app with a set of 10 filters, the product development of TV AR app in partnership with Samsung and the creation of motion capture technologies to enable an Avatar dance fight tournament aired on metaverses
Spatial computing fundamentals fluent, we have expanded our services to work on a VR cognitive game with specs and UX made together with the well-known Neuroscientist Pr Cheron with a goal to study the impact of immersive cognitive gaming towards brain performances by capting brainwaves during the gameplay
Following our AR Fashion drop, we entered a partnership with Snapchat as OLC, working on developing content with their latest features before they get released
As 3D body tracking appeared in spring, we decided to create a fashion drop mixing traditional fashion possibilities and impossible outfits in real life
After advanced R&D, educational and production jobs, we identified a need for an independent creation community to power meaningful content creation on any immersive technology -as technical communities are usually linked to specific technological brands. Project materializing in a digital hub providing a technical forum, an asset store and an E-Learning
The viral nature of social media filters and our willingness to improve our skills on the latest features of Social AR led us to create filters to support various good causes around the world from nature preservation for kids, to encourage youth to vote for US presidential elections passing by supporting the protest against abortion right abuses in Poland
Following the change of name from Facebook to Meta and their new ambition to conquer the metaverse space, we have been tasked by Meta to develop for them an experience of how would travel look like under AR glasses as an experience to present for them on their roadshow name Break Open AR. They also tasked us to help them create their first creator workshop on Meta product platform, where our lead tech taught how to use shaders on Spark AR
Big technological companies features productions we made on their AR authoring technologies using advanced features. Our own social media filters are getting viral with billions of impressions and one being awarded "Best instagram filter of the year" by Meta. And we won our first two hackathons: One production hackathon organized by Snap and an educational hackathon organized by Meta
When the original PopulAR's name was referring as making fun experiences that are popular. We figured that in this time of emergence, meaningful AR content counts more than a tech promise to make the public adopt this technology, leading us to invest our ressources with the ambition to nurture immersive content making as a means to popularize these technologies
Multiple productions made on different technologies are seen as world first with AR technology: A geolocated concert to release Lost Frequencie's "Love to go song". Pre-production AR Tryons on fashion pieces to analyze customer interest before production. And an educative 3D model of Laneva's electric boat to convince buyers
In a emerging and immature by nature market as the AR/VR one, it felt too risky to go further with funding the R&D of the mirror leading us to shift to an advanced production studio to keep on gathering market datas while hoping to get back at the mirror someday
This second prototype design phase comes as a bummer with mechanical and optical issues involving massive funding for further R&D without getting any functional guarantees
The fact that we could generate revenue without even asking for it and did it with high margins combined with a working prototype of the smart mirror convinced us to raise money to start the adventure while remaining careful with the very nature of an emerging market
Two demands came to us without prospection to produce AR experiences for marketing. One to celebrate 2019's Oscar's ceremony and another to activate the opening of an O'Tacos shop with geolocated AR.
A social media filter called "Hipster Santa" is getting used by multiple youtubers in their videos discussing the viral potential of social media filters , leading to massive uses of the filter on our social media account
After various experimentations it became clear to us that we will have to count on AR for years to come and that its potential is even higher while experimenting hands-free. Leading our founder's incubator to develop a working prototype of an AR-enabled smart mirror
During the summer, as we were experimenting with geolocated AR, we've been geolocating a dinosaur at the Belgian National Museum of Natural history, sending a press release telling that a dinosaur has been spotted wandering around the museum in an effort to inspire kids to go to the museum. A huge success that has been relayed by most of Belgian french speaking medias
Exploring the potential of AR in December 2017, our founder joins the AR Studio community and uses its incubator to make a couple of Social AR prototypes to validate its appeal with Lost Frequencies David Goffin and Celine Fremault for promotion purposes
