Ubiquity6 - Jeffrey Rae Fan

Ubiquity6

Capture & Edit in Augmented Reality

In 2019, Ubiquity6 published an AR app called Display.land that generates 3D captures of physical spaces using the everyday smartphone camera, empowering anyone to create shared digital spaces for self-expression and creativity.

Role

Director of Visual Design

My Team's Responsibilities

UI/UX, interaction design, visual design, and branding for our mobile app, web app, landing pages, marketing materials, and all other public-facing properties.

A New Class of Photography

The Display.land app uses a technique called photogrammetry, which analyzes multiple images of an environment from different angles to reconstruct a 3D mesh. While photogrammetry is not a new technology, this is the first time it’s been applied to a mobile consumer app. What use to require thousands of dollars in equipment and software can now be replicated using a common smartphone.

Teaching Users a New Behavior

Capturing in 3D requires quite a bit of skill and practice. Our biggest design challenge was to educate first-time users on how to use their phones in a way they have never done before. We tackled this problem using a variety of solutions, including haptic feedback, visual cues, live tooltips that responded to user action, and a series of tutorials during the onboarding experience.

3D environments captured on Display.land

A Community of 3D Creators

The goal of Display.land was always to lower the barriers to entry for 3D creation. Historically, all 3D software have had a steep learning curve, preventing casual users from authoring their own 3D experiences. The simplified experience we created on Display.land attracted 3D artists, game developers, and AR/VR enthusiasts from all over the world. Even professional photogrammetry experts used the app alongside their specialized workflows. The community that came together was quickly able to capture environments that far exceeded our expectations.

Lightweight Editing Tools for Mobile

The app also allowed users to quickly and easily make edits to their 3D captures. We introduced features such as crop, atmospheric filters, spatial notes, and placement of 3D objects.

Product Launch Video

Reimagining 3D Editors

Now that our users are creating a massive library of 3D objects and environments, what’s next? Games... obviously. Display.land Studio was the natural next stage to the capture app. We wanted a way for users to easily import their captures into a web-based 3D design app and to create fully functional games. The established players, such as Cinema4D, Unreal, Unity, and Blender, were all bloated pieces of professional software. Our new design aimed to simplify workflows and educate the average user on key concepts in 3D editing.

Game Lobby Concept

Games need players. Our team explored a number of “lobby” concepts, where friends can come together and choose from a library of community-built games. This concept explored the combination of video chat and 3D avatars.

Display.land Branding

The simple geometric ‘D’ shape was imagined as a canvas or viewfiender to frame visual narratives that further the Display.land brand. This shape opens up endless possibilities for creators to express their personal stories, exploring a diversity of forms, colors, patterns and materials.