The assignment for this week in my new media breakout group (AR) was reviewing a VR or AR experience application. The app that I chose was Tracing Projector.
I was honestly incredibly surprised at how well this app succeeded at its goal- being a tool to assist people with tracing any image. I feel like so many AR experiences are gimmicky or don’t have any legitimate functionality. This app felt useful.
The company that creates Tracing Projector compares the app to being like a modern day camera lucida- a tool that would direct light from an object through a prism that you could look through and trace
Basing the app off of an existing but dated technology is an interesting idea, and potentially set this app up for success. The idea was already proven successful, but the technique was antiquated. This app shows its usefulness when you compare it to other tracing options available. The app is much more portable and cheaper than a light box, more flexible to variable light conditions that taping paper to a window, and allows multiple canvas options as opposed to tracing paper or other tracing methods.
The app isn’t perfect. It advertises being able to be used while holding the phone, but I found a tripod or stack of books is necessary. The phone needs to stay still for best results. This was annoying at times even when using a stack of books; any movement of the paper or camera would require you to readjust the alignment so that the projection matched the tracing.
The app is free, but the free mode is quite lacking, you are limited to three minute tracings, which I only had success with simple images within that time frame. The full paid version is only five dollars, which I think is a pretty reasonable price for an interesting tool.
Overall this was one of the most interesting uses of AR that I’ve seen so far, and it made me excited to learn about creative ways of using AR that I’ve never considered. It seems like there are so many pointless AR gimmicks, and it was refreshing to see an idea with a legitimate function.