Google today unveiled its experimental effort to integrate augmented reality features into the mobile and desktop web using its Chrome browser. That way anyone could create virtual 3D objects into their websites for viewing on desktop, and make them downloadable on mobile so users could place those objects into their real world surroundings.
“In the next few months, there will be hundreds of millions of Android and iOS devices that are able to provide augmented reality experiences — meaning you’ll be able to look at the world through your phone, and place digital objects wherever you look,” writes Reza Ali and Josh Carpenter, who work on user experience on Google’s Daydream WebXR team. “To help bring this to as many users as possible, we’ve been exploring how to bring augmented reality to the web platform, so someday anyone with a browser can access this new technology.”
The working starts with a product tentatively called Article that Ali and Carpenter describe as a 3D model viewer for browsers. If Article is loaded on a desktop browser with a 3D model, it will display it as an interactive image you can drag to rotate. When placed in a webpage, the model could be animated similar to a GIF as a user scrolls to indicate it’s an interactive 3D model.
On mobile, the experience is much more sophisticated thanks to built-in cameras and sensors on modern smartphones. “The unique power of AR is to blend digital content with the real world,” the duo write. “So we can, for example, surf the web, find a model, place it in our room to see just how large it truly is, and physically walk around it.”