philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Dinosaur domination continues with the worldwide debut of the Dinotracker AR mobile app, the official companion app to the global box-office blockbuster Jurassic World Dominion

With today’s highly anticipated in-home release of Universal Pictures Home Entertainment’s’ Jurassic World Dominion Extended Edition also comes the global roll-out of the exclusive Dinotracker AR app. Inspired by the film that captivated audiences around the world, fans of all ages can use the app to discover, track, and interact with life-size dinosaurs they find in their own real-life environments. This storyline serves as the introduction to the innovative app, which features immersive storytelling through incredibly realistic, true-to-size dinos from the film, all brought to life with high-fidelity augmented reality. Currently available for download, the app was developed by Trigger XR — the most experienced XR developer and creative agency — and in partnership with Universal Pictures, Niantic, and LG Uplus, Qualcomm, and KOCCA in Korea. ...

In addition to the immersive storytelling, key technology within the Dinotracker AR app includes:

• Semantic understanding to create environmental awareness: Through Niantic’s Lightship ARDK, the app dynamically recognizes what kind of surfaces the user’s camera is looking at — in real-time. Based on where the user is, the experience will generate different dinosaur unlocks such as a Pteranodon flying in the sky or a Dilophosaurus near a body of grass.
• Spatial awareness and occlusion: The real-time generated depth information understands a user’s specific context and enables dinosaurs to appear behind objects like walls or other obtrusions to create a more realistic setting.
• Hand-tracking: Users can physically toss a piece of food to feed a Compsognathus in AR, generating a memorable moment. This hand-tracking interaction uses Apple’s Core ML for iOS devices and Google’s MediaPipe for Android devices.
• Walkable planes: After the user scans their environment, a 3D mesh representation of the user’s surroundings gives the dinosaurs space to move along open, flat ground areas or atop available surface heights. Users can point a laser and watch as the dinosaurs are attracted to it.
• High-fidelity 3D modeling and animations: The app delivers high-fidelity 3D modeling and a dynamic set of reactive animations to generate lifelike dinosaur behaviors and audio. For example if a user gets too close to the dinosaur, it will react accordingly!
• User generated content and amplification: The ultimate end result of the experience will be to populate the web-based Dinotracker map. The app creates a simple user journey – encouraging fans to go outdoors, explore, and upload and share photos and video captures of the dinosaurs using the #dinotracker hashtag and #JurassicWorldDominion. ...

See the full story here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220816005145/en/Dinosaur-domination-continues-with-the-worldwide-debut-of-the-Dinotracker-AR-mobile-app-the-official-companion-app-to-the-global-box-office-blockbuster-Jurassic-World-Dominion