Launching Virtual Museums with Snap Lens Studio

You probably have heard the big news already: the Heineken campaign our studio has worked on together with LePub Milan, Publicis Dublin and Thinkhouse bagged quite a few Lions at this year’s Festival of Creativity in Cannes. And by “a few,” we mean quite a lot! The total of 4 Gold Lions, 4 Silver Lions, and 10 Shortlisted Entries is something that you could easily call a bold entrance, right?!

First a quick reminder on what’s the whole fuss about. While pubs are culturally significant in Irish history, many are struggling to stay open. Heineken’s Pub Museums initiative is all about transforming those historic sites into virtual museums to help protect them. And that’s where our studio was invited to step in. Thus by exploring their past, we can help preserve their future.


To read more about the amazing concept go to our article on the blog here.

While it’s still buzzing, we wanted to share some insights into the technical aspects of the awarded ‘Pub Museums’ project. As the excitement settles, we’re diving into new projects. But before we move on, here’s a dose of knowledge for all the AR enthusiasts out there. Read on for some valuable insights! Sharing is caring. 

The Task: How to Kick It Off

We embarked on an ambitious project to launch four virtual museums. Rolling them out one at a time, but on a weekly basis was a thing! Our goal was to allow users to view pub exhibits without the need for continuous target tracking or for us having to 3D model the entire “museum” area. That would not only be hard to be entertained with, but also time-consuming and expensive. Instead, we used world tracking within a confined space to create a smooth, immersive, and interactive experience. By having users mark their initial position at the entrance, we were able to reference this throughout their entire visit. 

ORIENTATION AND NAVIGATION

Leveraging Snap Lens Studio

Snap Lens Studio played a crucial role in the development and execution of the virtual museums project. Here’s a rundown of how we used it and why it helped us create such awesome AR experiences for all the pub goers out there.

  • World Tracking Capabilities: Snap’s world tracking is unmatched in stability and performance. This was crucial for ensuring a seamless user experience, as we aimed to avoid using too much of target tracking. 
  • Target Tracking: This one on the other hand allowed us to determine the distance between the device and real-world objects with almost surgical precision, a vital feature for the mechanics of the AR experience.
  • Advanced Scripting: The Studio’s capabilities allowed us to customize interactions and behaviors of the AR elements, streamlining our workflow and enhancing the user experience.
  • Snap Cloud: The infrastructure enabled us to integrate a substantial amount of 3D assets into a single project, which was essential for the complexity and scale of our virtual museum. It also contributed greatly to the overall performance of the lens, allowing for a smooth user experience as assets loaded individually in real-time, eliminating the need for a lengthy loading time at the lens’s launch.
  • Asset Integration: The platform supported a wide range of 3D assets and animations, making it easier to bring the creative visions to life.

ANIMATED ASSETS

Key features

With Lens Studio, we could push the boundaries of what’s possible in AR, crafting immersive experiences that engaged and delighted users. Some of the standout features we made use of included:

  • Scanning/Positioning: That’s the part where we went off limits with our creativity by successfully designing a dedicated location and navigation engine. Once on site, users scanned an entry plaque to establish their device’s position relative to the exhibits. Knowing the precise location of the device in the real world enabled us to accurately distribute exhibits within the space. So stoked to see the hard work paid back and the idea worked flawlessly, cause it did! 
  • Location, location, location: Users did not need to scan any physical objects to see the virtual ones. Why would they, right?! All exhibits were anchored to the real world using target tracking and that “magic” trick of ours with the entry point reference, namely the entry plaque serving as the origin point. Calculations regarding the device location were made on the spot and exhibits appeared as users approached them, even if they were placed just 30-40 cm apart.
  • Live Map: All exhibits were marked on a live map, facilitating easy navigation through the museum. Users could see their live position on the map and check which parts of the museum they had yet to visit, or even which exhibits are left to be seen. We translated the coordinates obtained through the creative use of target tracking to  the map scale for accurate positioning. Just like that. 
  • AI Generated Audio Guides: Each location featured a unique audio guide that narrated the history of the venue or details about the exhibits. This added a rich, informative layer to the virtual museum experience, and by rich we mean it! Forget  that generic dehumanized voiceover everybody is fed up with, we got the real-deal, a proper Irish narrative!  
  • Data: To accommodate around 10 exhibits per location, including all those 3D objects animations, audio files, 2D animations, and UI components, we leveraged Snapchat’s cloud big time. This allowed us to host the load of over 30 megabytes of data, crucial for a project of this scale without hurting the initial loading time at the launch of the lens.

CLOUD ASSETS

The Outcome

We pulled off four Snapchat AR experiences in four different spots, showing off 32 exhibits in total. These virtual museums were spread across two countries and four cities, reaching over 3 million people through different publications. Snap turned out to be the most flexible and advanced tool for this project, their tracking features super reliable and Lens Studio’s scripting made our work a lot faster. The tech let us create a fun, large-scale virtual museum that grabbed the attention of a huge audience and in the end got incredible recognition for all the parties engaged. 

Learn more about the campaign by visiting Heineken’s “Pub Museums” by LePub, Publicis, Thinkhouse and Lens That article on our blog.