Tilt Brush is coming to the Oculus Quest

Illustration, VR/AR

Man, at $199 & sporting this creation tool, the forthcoming standalone device is starting to seriously tempt me. As for Tilt Brush specifically, the Verge writes,

After its original release on the HTC Vive back in 2016, Tilt Brush quickly became a mainstay of headset demos. It’s easy enough to start painting basic 3D structures, but in the years since, artists have painted some pretty stunning pieces in the app. The Quest version of Tilt Brush will continue to support uploads to Poly, Google’s online 3D object library, if you want to share your work, or just gawk at what others have made.

Check out lots more details on the Oculus site.

AR turns a Jack Daniel’s label into a slick popup

VR/AR

I love the execution here. I’ve long wanted to automatically put people into LovePop-style 3D cards, but no one listens & I can just say these things here because lol nothing matters. 😌

VR Scout writes,

The first augmented scene converts the bottle into a model of the actual Jack Daniels distillery located in Lynchburg, Tennessee. The second experience takes you step-by-step through their whiskey distillation process, while the third tells the story of Jack Daniels himself.

NewImage

[YouTube] [Via Asad Ullah Naweed]

Drones helped track & stop the Notre Dame fire

Photography

Even without purpose-made mods like available thermal cameras, DJI drones helped minimize damage to Notre Dame. According to The Verge,

Fire brigade spokesman Gabriel Plus told local media that the drones were instrumental in saving the cathedral’s structure. “The drones allowed us to correctly use what we had at our disposal,” Plus said in comments translated from French. Firefighters also relied on the Mavic Pro’s visible light camera and optical and electronic zoom… 

“The mission was delicate and they intelligently called for the Parisian Police Drone Unit cell, which is a dedicated team of professional drone pilots ready to intervene in critical missions,” the spokesperson added. The drones were borrowed from France’s culture and interior ministries, as firefighters still don’t have their own drones.

“Etch-A-Snap,” a Raspberry Pi-powered Etch A Sketch camera

Miscellaneous

Rad!

As PetaPixel explains,

The camera is powered by Raspberry Pi Zero. After a digital photo is captured, they’re processed down to a 240×144 pixel 1-bit black-and-white line drawing using Pillow and OpenCV. The drawing is then translated into plotter commands by creating a network graph representation with NetworkX. Those plotter commands are carried out by physically moving the Etch A Sketch wheels using two 5V stepper motors built into a custom 3D-printed frame Fitzpatrick created.

[YouTube]

The world’s largest airplane takes off

Miscellaneous

They finally made it! This 500,000-lb. beast is designed to carry rockets to 35,000ft., then drop-launch them into orbit.

In partnership with Scaled Composites, Stratolaunch successfully completed the first flight of the Stratolaunch aircraft. As part of this initial flight of the world’s largest aircraft, the pilots evaluated aircraft performance and handling qualities of the all-composite, duel-fuselage design. The airplane took off at 0658 PDT on April 13, 2019, from the Mojave Air & Space Port, and flew for 2.5 hours, achieving a maximum speed of 189 miles per hour and reaching altitudes of up to 17,000 feet. The plane landed safely amid cheers from the team that designed and built the plane.

[YouTube]

Snapchat’s latest GoT filter freezes the Flatiron Building

VR/AR

Really damn impressive.

Snapchat users in NYC will be able to experience the Landmarker lens starting Sunday, April 14 — the premiere date for “Game of Thrones” Season 8 — and the week thereafter, to see the fantasy creature encase the Flatiron in ice… To access the “GOT” Landmaker Lens, users in the vicinity of the Flatiron Building must tap the Snapchat camera and select the “Game of Thrones” Lens.