Niantic Research: CHI 2024: “Don’t Look Now” – Research to unlock the potential of 3D scanning

Understanding the real world is a major part of our work at Niantic – and technology for scanning 3D objects and scenes is critical. Only when we map and understand the world can we place digital objects within it in a realistic, useful and believable way. But scanning is not an easy process, especially for non-experts. While the new approach didn’t necessarily improve people’s feelings around safety and comfort of scanning, it made the process more engaging and yielded superior scans. Our hope is that this research sparks further exploration into the use of audio and haptic feedback in 3D scanning - the future of augmented reality may depend on it!