Every time a pint of ice-cream is placed in front of us we can barely wait to dig in. However, it’s often too hard and its temperature would make our throats sore, so we can’t do anything but wait. Häagen-Dazs created an app that displays an augmented reality concerto on top of each pint, and in the meanwhile, the ice-cream gets to the perfect temperature and texture.
In cooperation with Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Jam3, the renowned ice-cream manufacturer created an iPhone app that is meant to distract people in a classy manner while their ice-cream reaches the perfect consistency.
All that people have to do is launch the Concerto Timer app on their iPhone, point it at a carton of ice-cream and stare in awe as the silhouette of a violin player starts to rise from the top of the pint. Greedy people (obviously, when I say that I mean the people who can’t get enough classical music in their lives) are free to add a second carton of Häagen-Dazs ice-cream in the picture, in order to see a cellist do the same. The whole performance lasts for two minutes, and according to the manufacturer’s calculations, this is exactly the time needed for the ice-cream to melt properly.
JAM3 explains their new approach at AR in the following video: “There are 2 typical approaches to AR, either create a video which will live on a flat pane or create a low poly 3D model that looks video gamey. Never satisfied with taking the typical route, we decided to invent a new one. We combined video with a particle engine to give our musicians a truly unique 3 dimensional form to that hasn’t been done before.
In order to achieve the ethereal effect of the musicians, footage of the violinist and cellist were shot with both a DSLR camera and a Kinect camera (Microsoft’s depth and motion sensing device for Xbox). The two cameras were synchronized on the shoot, and during our in house post production process the data was combined to create the holographic like effect.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAjf9YfpL1U
Written in objective C and including Qualcomm’s VUFORIA AR, the Concerto Timer app is certainly something that people have never seen before. Along with 3D-printing, augmented reality really seems to be trending lately, and that can only be a good thing.
If you liked this post, please check the IKEA augmented reality app that places virtual furniture into your home, and the Cadbury augmented reality games.
