Snap announces new camera and AR experiences

Snapchat SnapML

Snap Inc. today rolled out new camera and augmented reality (AR) experiences for developers, creators, and Snapchatters.

The AR proponent revealed that more than 170 million Snapchatters engage with AR daily for nearly 30 times per day. Snap’s popular Lenses are made in-house by Snap’s own design team and its global creator community. Top-performing community lenses reach billions of views on Snapchat.

Creators and developers can use Lens Studio, a powerful, free desktop application that can build and distribute AR Lenses on the Snapchat platform.

New Lens Studio

One of the key updates today is an updated Lens Studio, now with a machine learning kit called SnapML, which lets developers bring their own machine learning models to power Lenses.

Now, anyone can create their own Lenses with neural networks that they’ve trained, expanding the possibilities for Lenses.

Snap has partnered with Wannaby, Prisma, CV2020, and several Official Lens Creators on their first SnapML creations.

Lens Studio also now offers Face Landmarks and Face Expressions for improved facial tracking, new Hand Gestures templates, and an updated user interface to simply navigation within the tool.

Additionally, the app is releasing a foot tracking template powered by an ML model from Wannaby that lets developers easily create Lenses that interact with feet.

Interested to develop lenses? Head over to lensstudio.snapchat.com.

Local Lenses

Snap is previewing Local Lenses, which enable a persistent, shared AR world built on top of your environment. Soon, you and your friends can step into this virtual space together to decorate nearby buildings with colour paints and effects. This is certainly something to look forward to.

Scan

Taking object recognition up several notches is Snapchat’s Scan feature. You can “press and hold” on the camera screen, then relevant and helpful Lenses are unlocked based on what is seen in front.

Today, Snap announces several new Scan partners. With PlantSnap, Snapchat can identify 90 per cent of all known plants and trees.

Meanwhile, Dog Scanner can recognise almost 400 breeds of man’s best friend. Later this year, integration with Yuka will power Nutrition Scanner, which provides a rating on the quality of ingredients in many packaged foods, simply by scanning the label.

Scan will power ever more compelling experiences for brands. Soon, scanning the iconic Louis Vuitton monogram will transport Snapchatters to the inspiration behind their latest collection.

Lastly, Voice Scan offers you Lens results based on voice commands. This is possible via a partnership with SoundHound. Simply press and hold the camera screen to tell Snapchat what kind of Lens to display.

Snapchat is available for iOS and Android. Download Snapchat here.


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Vernon
Vernon is the founder and chief editor of Vernonchan.com. A graphic designer by profession, he has a deep love for technology, cars, gadgets, food, and travel. He tweets too much and is also known as a caffeine bacterium ("life's too short for bad coffee"). Bleeds Blue (go Chelsea FC!) and considers BMW, Porsche, Alfa Romeo cars to have in the garage--hallmarks of a true petrolhead.