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Blog: virtual-commerce

LCPlush’s AR Store Sells Handmade Plush Toys

Adriane Goetz May 5, 2011








The multitalented Celine Mornet (known professionally as LutinCapuche) may be a Flash developer by trade, but she also has a creative outlet that allows her to step away from the computer monitor: designing and sewing stuffed animals (or “plushes,” to be exact).



Celine started making these plushes purely or fun; she displayed her little handmade creatures online but didn’t intend to sell any until people started asking to buy them from her. She then decided to make purchases easier by creating an online store, and has recently made the experience more fun by also selling them in Augmented Reality.



We’ve talked about HPSC‘s Herve Pellarin and his virtual commerce (aka v-commerce) layers before, but these AR shops seem to be getting cooler with each new implementation. The LCPlush Anywhere layer, for example, has intricate character designs on the walls, 3D renderings of the plushes and images of the actual products.










Introducing LCPlush: the latest in V-commerce on the Layar platform.

Celine and Herve worked together in France, and it was Herve who gave her the idea for an AR shop. The two joined forces on this project and created the AR shop in only two weeks!



“This guy is amazing because he always has some innovative ideas,” Celine says. “Everytime time I talk to him I learn something new. He made me discover Layar, how it works and how I can use it to sell my plushes.”



The LCPlush Shop layer has geo-located stores in her own city of Montreal, Canada, as well as in Paris, Geneva and Annecy, France that you can literally walk into.



For everyone outside of Canada and France, there’s the LCPlush Anywhere layer that places you in the center of the store where you can view various stuffed curiosities like the Real Monsters-esque Croc Cochmar and the cuddly yet carnivorous CrockNFish.



You also can share your favorite plushes on Facebook or Twitter, access the item in the online store (where you can purchase it via PayPal), or call the company from inside the layer.










The adorable Crock Cochmar in the LCPlush AR shop.

Even with her online store and AR shop capabilities, Celine doesn’t want to increase the number of plush orders much beyond her current 10 or so per week (hand-sewing plushes can get very time-consuming). She is, however, interested in expanding her use of AR, which she believes is an exciting new way to diffuse a brand.



In the near future, Celine would like to add more elements to her LCPlush AR shop. For example, she wants to allow users to customize their own plushes in 3D and place them around the world.



“At the end of the day, the goal is to build a kind of huge LCPlush exhibition and organize some contests with plushes as prizes,” she says.



Celine plans to do more projects with Herve, but also plans to develop new, complex layers on her own using her newly-acquired Layar development skills.

Permalink: www.layar.com/news/blog/274

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Layar’s 3D Augmented Office at Mobile World Congress, and an Introduction to Virtual Commerce

Adriane Goetz February 17, 2011










Layar 3D augmented office.
Outside view of the Layar Augmented Office.

As we mentioned last week, Layar is attending the 2011 GSMA Mobile World Congress conference/exhibition in Barcelona from 14-17 February, and we weren’t about to show up empty-handed.



Each afternoon at MWC Fountain, Layer is holding an Augmented Reality meetup where we show off our new Augmented Office layer, an interactive 3D model that you can literally walk into and access information about the company, layer content, job openings and more.



This layer was created especially for MWC, so it is only visible from Barcelona, but there is also a public version that can be viewed from anywhere in the world.



The 3D office combines elements of virtual reality with AR, enabling a 360 degree view of the space. You can look up at the multilevel ceiling, down at the tile and wooden floors, and around through the many windows where you can still see the “real” world.



Turn or walk around in the office and you see posters on the walls of some of our Layar Partner Network members, where you can touch the pop-up screen to visit their website, email them or follow them on Twitter. You also find portraits of our co-founders and our reps at MWC that you can contact or connect with on Twitter right from the layer.













Layar 3D augmented office.
Inside view of the Layar Augmented Office.

Continuing the office tour, you see posters on the windows for five of our coolest international layers that you can launch directly from inside the Augmented Office layer (A layer within a layer? Now we’re approaching Inception theory—be careful!).



Finally, near the doorway, you see a monitor on the wall that says “Layar News & Jobs” where you can see the current job/internship opportunities and read the latest news on our blog.



The concept of an “augmented office” allows any company to become an international company. You can place an office in the heart of Tokyo, Dubai or at Time Square in New York City.



But just as easily as you can place an office, you can place a store, selling merchandise through Paypal in AR! Case and point: Hostage Wear Shop. Hostage Wear is Layar’s first AR store, selling hats, t-shirts and other urban skate/streetwear products directly from the layer—there’s even a half-pipe in the store! (Although we don’t recommend trying to skateboard in AR… yet).










Layar 3D augmented office.
Outside view of the Hostage Wear shop.

Funnily enough, the Hostage Wear Shop layer actually started out as a joke. Herve Pellarin, creator of both Layar’s Augmented Office and Hostage Wear Shop (and the concept of virtual commerce in general), originally made the layer for his best friend to, in Pellarin’s words, “shut his mouth” about the frustration and expense of constantly having to make the tradeshow circuit to gain brand recognition and sell merchandise.



As anyone working in AR knows, monetization is a major issue at the moment, so virtual commerce is an exciting and much welcomed new element to the platform.



Pellarin is the man behind French development company HPSC, a member of the Layar Partner Network. He has made virtual commerce his primary focus, embarking on several new [mostly confidential] projects, and continues to push the boundaries in AR. Pellarin may still wear the coding hat, but assures us “I’m not a programmer. I’m a dreamer; an AR-chitect.”



You can contact Herve Pellarin at nocomp@gmail.com or follow @nocomp on Twitter.

Permalink: www.layar.com/news/blog/232

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