Just a Line: A New Google App Allowing You to Draw Lines in the Air
Augmented Reality is intriguing in the manner of finding Pokemon on the streets you walk. Or, augmented reality is really interesting stuff to enjoy the shopping experience with a mixed presentation of the products right on the rack and on your screen. From gaming to retail to real estate, AR powered apps are guiding us through the living reality in more ways than one.
But apart from the functional aspects what we often forget to mention is the fun involved in augmented reality apps. Won’t you find it funny to draw doodle lines on air while your friends interact with the lines to deliver an AR effect? Sounds really funny? Or, does it sound a little crazy? Well, meet Just A Line, a new Google app that has been launched to help you doodle lines in AR. This is the first of its kind augmented reality app launched by Google.
Just A Line represents many possibilities for Google’s AR platform
Named as Just a Line, this unique app allows you drawing white lines in the air and thereafter sharing the same with a short video. The mastermind behind this funny app is the Creative Lab unit of Google which tried to address the fun aspect of the augmented reality in an engaging manner. It is largely bring marketed by the Google as the “AR experiment”, though the experiment seems to push various experiments with the technology in the time to come.
Google also launched an independent website for this new experiment along side the app. The webpage is built for showcasing this app besides a whole range of other AR experiments that other developers have built using the ARCore, Google’s own AR platform. ARCore has been the Google platform known to help Android developers building AR based apps and games.
The official launch of Google’s ARCore actually gave way for a whole array of innovations. The retail giant eBay is bent on utilising augmented reality (AR) to give users some clues about the products containing in the boxes while they are shipped. There are several other AR based apps that are joining hands with Google. IKEA is now considering to bring the Place app to Android and another funny app Meow ARCat from InnoVision that allows raising a cat in the AR is also bringing its app to Google.
What Just A Line does?
Do you use a Google Android phone supporting Google’s augmented reality platform ARCore? Then you can enjoy this new and unique Google app called “Just A Line”. It will allow you to draw a line practically in the air just by using their phones while this line can be interacted with later by their friends in a small video. You draw the line in the air and then the same line you can share and present with a small video in which your dear ones can interact with these lines in the air. If you have heard about ‘building castle in the air’, this may seem to be too literal for a proverb like this.
Does it remind you of AR filters?
Such funny experiments with AR are not entirely new as we have earlier come across AR filters. The Snapchat filters that allow us sporting some funny faces with animal ears and noses are nice examples of AR being used for funny pictures. But, such lucid doodling lines drawn on the air and seeing people interacting with them, seems to have some real innovative flair. The only downside for many Android users is that for using this straight from their device they need to have a smartphone powered by ARCore augmented reality platform of Google.
The fun experience with AR going versatile
Through a video presenting the Just a Line app, Google shows how one can draw small stars or flying saucers or small fishes or anything of their wish in augmented reality. All you need to do is to navigate to the app followed by pointing the device camera at something you want to shoot and start doodling your lines drawing objects of your choice right on your device screen and on-screen video. Ultimately you will get a video with lines and drawn out objects in the air.
Wrapping things up
The app actually uses the technology of Tilt Brush app of Google to paint in a 3D space. But while this app was only meant for VR headsets, Just a Line can be relished by users only with their own Android phones. At present, Google Pixel 2 range all latest Samsung Galaxy phones support ARCore to run this app.
Dhruvil is a Writer & Marketeer for Nimblechapps, joined in December 2014, based out of Sydney, Australia. He has worked briefly as a Branding and Digital Marketing Manager before moving to Australia. At Nimblechapps, he worked on Social Media Marketing, Branding, Email Marketing and Blogging. Dhruvil studies Business at University of Western Sydney, and also handles Operations for the company in Australia.