It’s November and here at Layar it’s a special month because we are taking a moment to shine the spotlight on some really fun tools: Layar Creation Tools. What are these, you ask? Layar Creation Tools - or LCTs as we’ve started to call them around the office - are exactly what they sound like: tools that help with the creation of Layar content.

Not everyone has super-technical code-monkey abilities, but a lot of people have great ideas for content they would like to see in augmented reality. These tools make it easy for anyone to quickly place information into a layer and see it augmenting their reality within minutes.

This month, we will be showcasing some of these Layar Creation Tools here on the Layar Blog. We will provide an overview of how they work, who they are intended for, their pros and cons, etc. If you find yourself wishing you could create your own Layar content, by the end of the month you should know how to do just that. Here are some of the tools we are looking into:

• Hoppala Augmentation


• BuildAR


• Skaloop


• VISAR

We’re excited to share some of these great tools with you all, so keep an eye on the blog for more coming soon. Happy LCT Month!

Augmented Reality is the medium for interactivity, animation and cool visuals. That’s how you get engagement and that’s what our new 4.0 release of the Layar Augmented Reality Browser for Android is focused on. Today we’ve announced the next wave of interactive Augmented Reality experiences.

In the spirit of sharing the new capabilities of this release, we’ve listed several amazing layers below. These layers show the new interaction and interface capabilities of the new release of the platform and the browser. A special thanks to the Layar Partner Network members who created these. You can update to the latest version through the Android Market and view the layers mentioned below (iPhone version will follow soon).

ARcade by HPSC 2010 is the 30th anniversary of the legendary PAC-MAN game is the inspiration of the ARcade game on Layar. In this game players run after blinky cubes in a retro-arcade decor. The line of cubes is generated for the player, who gets points for every cubes he goes through. Players must register to play and see leaderboards of the day and the week.

Direct link to open the game on your phone http://m.layar.com/open/arcade

Woomba by Superimpose and Hoppala The Woombas escaped! Circus director Zambarini needs your help to catch them again. But watch out for the Wookies who disguise as Woombas and try to get you. Score points by catching different game characters, leading you on a fun trail.

Direct link to open the game on your phone http://m.layar.com/open/woombamania

Other showcases:

Read more » Categories Business Developers Layers Games Users Tags dnl-pro elipse-ad g-maps hoppala hpsc international screenshots tabworldmedia Permalink: www.layar.com/news/blog/185 Tweet   HOPPALA! Augmentation launched maurice groenhart July 15, 2010 Today Hoppala, one of the members of the Layar Partner Network, launched a tool called Augmentation. Augmentation provides an easy way for non-technical creatives to start experimenting with Augmented Reality on Layar. HOPPALA! Augmentation comes with a full screen map interface to place and edit augments all around the world. Upload your images and icons, audio, video and 3D multimedia content with just some mouse clicks and add it to your personalized inventory in the cloud. HOPPALA! Augmentation even does the hosting for you. It simply runs in your browser, there’s no software installation required and no coding needed at all. We talked to Marc Rene Gardeya from Hoppala. Why did you create augmentation on top of Layars API? HOPPALA! Augmentation started as an internal test tool. The more layers we built, the more we needed to test certain use cases and scenarios. It turned out to be pretty unhandy to manually edit some source code everytime we wanted to check the effect of some parameter changes. So we created a graphical user interface. During that time we met a lot of people who told us they would so much like to step into AR and Layar but just don’t know how to do it technically. Our goal was to open AR content creation to non-technical people. Why should non-technical people use your tools, next to the fact that it’s easy? With HOPPALA! Augmentation non-technical people can concentrate on their strengths and just be creative. That’s why HOPPALA! Augmentation provides all the multimedia features supported by Layar, e.g. audio, video and 3D. Finally there is no more technical hurdle in the way. Everybody can create an account and start experimenting immediately. And it’s free! What do you expect of augmentation in terms of layers created by non-technical people? HOPPALA! Augmentation opens up the augmented reality community to a much wider audience and encourages engagement of creatives from different industries. I’m very excited to see creatives contributing a very new spin. Opening doors for non-techs will certainly enrich and speed up the overall content creation progress. HOPPALA! Augmentation is the incubator for a whole lot of new ideas in Augmented Reality. Categories Developers Tools Tags hoppala Permalink: www.layar.com/news/blog/165 Tweet   The Berlin Wall is back maurice groenhart April 16, 2010 The Berlin Wall was a concrete barrier built by the German Democratic Republic that completely enclosed the city of West Berlin, separating it from East Germany including East Berlin. The wall fell in 1989, but is now back in it’s original environmental context in Berlin with the Berliner Mauer layer. Two German layer developers, Hoppala and Superimpose, developed this layer, which is an amazing showcase of the 3D capabilities and relevancy of our platform when it comes to putting back history in it’s original context. The Berliner Mauer layer includes guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area. Follow the former border line from Brandenburg gate and experience german history at an historical place – right in the middle of germanys capital. Check out this cool layer when you’re in Berlin. Go to the Brandenburg gate, open the Berlin Wall layer and see how the fallen Berlin Wall comes back to life. Categories Business Developers Layers Architecture & buildings Users Tags berlin hoppala superimpose Permalink: www.layar.com/news/blog/108 Tweet   Seasonal layers: Have a happy easter! Redactie April 3, 2010 Already in 2009 great “seasonal layers” have been developed. For instance, Zehnder communications have developed a great layer especially for the 3-days New Orleans Voodoo (music) Festival. Festival-goers, with Layar-enabled phones, could get information on performances, attractions and services. For easter Marc René Gardeya, from Hoppala, has developed the “Hoppala goes Easter layer”. The layer lets you place 3D easter eggs around the world and leave messages for your friends. You can search for eggs wherever you are. Ochio.nl has developed a special “easter egg search game” layer for The Netherlands. (Here at Layar Headquarters Amsterdam we can’t wait to see all the creative ideas for a “Queensday layer” the 30th of April - which is THE national celebration in the Netherlands). We talked to Marc René Gardeya and Jeroen Meijer from Muzar.org (Christmas greetings layer dec 09) about developing “seasonal layers”. Why a seasonal layer? Marc: We’re right at the dawn of that new medium called augmented reality. It is an experience medium. Jeroen: “The seasonal Xmass layar for us actually started as a joke. “wow” it would be kind of cool to have Santa hovering over your house, seemingly useless but fun. Remember this was the first seasonal layar around. After that we had to think of a way to make it possible, even for a layman to geocode the location and to send somebody else a mail “warning” them of a giant Santa over their house. Developing this Layar was very usefull for us to get to know the 3D capabilities better and getting hands on experience in the integration of fixed- and mobile internet. Moreover, it generated quite some demand from a comercial perspective! What is  (was) the functionality and usage of the layer? Marc: Augmented reality on this medium is so great beause of three things: It combines the real and the virtual, it’s interactive and realtime, and it’s 3D. This is what “Hoppala goes Easter” is about. It combines the real and the virtual - place eggs at your friends place, it’s just that they’re augments. It’s interactive and realtime - place eggs right from your phone, right where you are, and they’re instantly there. And it’s 3D - walk around our exclusively designed eggs. It’s lots of fun! Jeroen: “Actually, this Layar was intended to replace all xmass cards around. They take up valuable natural resources etc. No not really…it was just made for a very small audience. As I see present seasonal layars they attract a bigger audience, also due to the fact that Layar is getting main-stream now.” Anything else you’d like to share? Marc: “We’re working on some great products due for this year. Please feel free to follow Hoppala news on Twitter @hoppala_eu.” Jeroen: “Go out there and be creative…. why only seasonal greetings? Why not birthday cakes, congrats, etc. Lets augement the world!” Happy easter! Categories Layers Entertainment Users Tags hoppala muzar Permalink: www.layar.com/news/blog/106 Tweet   « Previous 1 2 3 Next » We request not to sign up and further make payments for Layar services. Please proceed to use Blippbuilder to create AR experiences. We use cookies to improve our services. Don’t worry, they don’t store personal or sensitive information and you can disable them at any time in your browser settings.