Augment’s New Desktop Software: Create and Preview Interactive Solutions for Augmented Reality

Introducing Augment Desktop, a software to help 3D designers preview, edit, and configure 3D models and launch them in augmented reality in minutes.

3D design software and AR technology need to function well together for their tools to create powerful experiences. For years, 3D product models or photos were only displayed in 2D for customers to see. Essentially, a picture of the 3D model was taken and displayed on a website or shared with a client. More recently, 3D models and scans have been embedded on some websites to rotate with 360 degrees of freedom with a cursor.

But now, augmented reality offers the ideal solution for anyone to truly experience and interact with a 3D model as it was intended — in context, in their real environment.

While you can easily upload a jpeg image on any website and have it appear as you’d expect, 3D files are in a different category altogether. One 3D model can be made up of various sub-files, but many AR solutions are still struggling to translate them to the cloud accurately. For AR to become ubiquitous and a tool for every company, the process of creating and uploading content must be reliable and painless.

Augment’s new desktop solution

Augment is committed to creating simple, powerful ways for any company to accurately display 3D product models and interactive experiences in the real world, in real-time, and at scale. We’ve invested in creating a reliable AR viewer for mobile devices (Augment App), a simple yet robust content management platform for organizing and sharing 3D models (Augment Manager), as well as plugins for exporting 3D models from modeling software directly to the Augment Manager.

But we wanted to make an even better experience for designers to go from their 3D modeling software to realistic augmented reality. To avoid uploading a 3D model for AR that could be displayed at the wrong angle or missing textures, Augment’s Desktop software helps you preview before launching.

Before, a 3D designer would have to tweak and troubleshoot in their 3D modeling software, only to upload the model multiple times to try and achieve the intended result. It’s a frustrating and common occurrence that we’ve experienced ourselves.

These trends tell us that 3D designers need a better way to preview their models accurately for AR and a streamlined process for creating and optimizing in-app experiences.

To solve this problem, we built Augment Desktop — a new desktop tool to preview, configure, and upload 3D models to the cloud for augmented reality. Augment Desktop was created by Augment’s Lead 3D Engineer with input from our 3D design experts. Our team has been using this powerful tool for some of the biggest brands in the world, and Augment Desktop is now available to anyone with an Augment account.

Augment Desktop helps 3D designers achieve the result they require in AR by giving businesses an accurate preview of how their 3D models will appear, control to create customizable materials for the same object, and the ability to configure triggered, in-app animations.

Within Augment Desktop, 3D designers can easily change and upload additional texture maps (including diffuse, specular, bump maps, and more) for their models to create engaging retail experiences for the end-user.

Augment also gives designers control over when and how their existing animations are played in the Augment app by enabling triggers or “click events” when the user taps on an object. They can also link an associated website to the model which seamlessly transitions the customer from AR to the company’s website.

Once you’ve used Augment Desktop to preview, configure, and upload a 3D model to Augment, share the link with us in the comments!

Originally published at www.augment.com on April 26, 2016.