I’m delighted to share that my team’s work to add 3D & AR automotive results to Google Search—streaming in cinematic quality via cloud rendering—has now been announced! Check out the demo starting around 36:30:

Here’s how we put it on via the Google Keyword blog:

Bring the showroom to you with AR

You can easily check out what the car looks like in different colors, zoom in to see intricate details like buttons on the dashboard, view it against beautiful backdrops and even see it in your driveway. We’re experimenting with this feature in the U.S. and working with top auto brands, such as Volvo and Porsche, to bring these experiences to you soon.

Cloud streaming enables us to take file size out of the equation, so we can serve up super detailed visuals from models that are hundreds of megabytes in size:

Right now the feature is in testing in the US, so there’s a chance you can experience it via Android right now (with iOS planned soon). We hope to make it available widely soon, and I can’t wait to hear what you think!

“I know it’s not the ‘woke’ thing to say, but I hope the world is enslaved by an ancient soulless sentience.” — my Lovecraft-loving weirdo friend

Heh—they’re not all creepy, to be sure, but come browse fun stuff on Google Arts & Culture, view the models in 3D, and if you’re on your phone, place them in your space via AR.

DesignTaxi writes,

Some of the creatures include the Aegirocassis, a sea creature that existed 480 million years ago; a creepy-looking ancient crustacean; and a digital remodel of the whale skeleton, which is currently in view in the National History Museum’s Hintze Hall.

Exceedingly tangentially: who doesn’t love a good coelacanth reference?

…In the best possible way, of course.

My mom loves to remind me about how she sweltered, hugely pregnant with me, through a muggy Illinois summer while listening to cicadas drone on & on. Now I want to bring a taste of the 70’s back to her via Google’s latest AR content.

You can now search for all these little (and not-so-little) guys via your Android or iPhone and see them in your room:

Here’s a list of new models:

• Rhinoceros beetle
• Hercules beetle
• Atlas beetle
• Stag beetle
• Giant stag
• Miyama stag beetle
• Shining ball scarab beetle
• Jewel beetle
• Ladybug
• Firefly
• Rosalia batesi
• Swallowtail butterfly
• Morpho butterfly
• Atlas moth
• Mantis
• Grasshopper
• Dragonfly
• Hornet
• Robust cicada
• Brown cicada
• Periodical cicada
• Walker’s cicada
• Evening cicada.

Artist/technologist Erik Natzke has kept me inspired for the better part of 20 years. His work played a key role in sending me down a multi-year rabbit hole trying to get Flash (and later HTML) to be a live layer type within Photoshop and other Adobe apps. The creative possibilities were tremendous, and though I’ll always be sad we couldn’t make it happen, I’m glad we tried & grateful for the inspiration.

Anyway, since going independent following a multi-year stint at Adobe, Erik has been sharing delightful AR explorations—recently featuring virtual Legos interacting with realtime depth maps of a scene. He’s been sharing so much so quickly lately that I can’t keep up and would encourage you to follow his Twitter & Instagram feeds, but meanwhile here are some fun tastes:

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Real-time virtual @lego assembly via @Apple #ARKit #LiDAR #iPad and @unitytechnologies Universal Rendering Pipeline #URP. Exceptionally pleased with the increased performance (and elated to know more about render pipelines). The creative potential is massive! #madewithunity (Naturally) #AR

A post shared by Erik Natzke (@erik_natzke) on Jul 16, 2020 at 12:27am PDT

Now, how soon until we can create the Fell In Love With A Girl video in realtime? 😌🤘

The Land Rover app for iOS & Android, leveraging Unity + ARKit & ARCore, goes beyond ye old “spin car in space & maybe change wheels” approach we’ve long seen. Somehow I can’t embed the video, but it’s worth a look, and you can get a taste of the immersive environments it enables here: