Zappar announces partnerships with Arcturus and Avatar SDK, and unveils its new ‘Zapvision’ platform to help the blind and partially sighted

In Augmented Reality News 

June 2, 2022 – Zappar, a provider of an augmented reality (AR) platform and creative studio, has this week announced at AWE USA 2022 a partnership with Arcturus, a provider of services for editing, distribution and streaming of volumetric videos to any device.

According to Zappar, with advancements in volumetric capture and streaming (due to companies like Arcturus), volumetric video is quickly becoming a key component in how brands and businesses communicate today. This month, exclusively at AWE, Zappar is announcing its partnership with Arcturus to help more AR creators and developers leverage volumetric video in their WebAR experiences. The two companies have also been working together to create demo content for the AWE event, which users can try out here.

Chris Holton, Head of Product at Zappar explained: “We’ve been big fans of Arcturus’s suite of tools for streaming, rendering and editing volumetric content so that designers and developers can build more immersive augmented reality experiences with live-action performances for the web. The simplicity and power of their platform will make it easier for ZapWorks partners to build more immersive WebAR experiences using volumetric video.”

Piotr Uzarowicz, Direct of Marketing & Partnerships at Arcturus, commented: “Zappar is one of the most innovative AR companies in the world, so partnering with them to make sure their users are able to use HoloSuite to adaptively stream volumetric video content was a natural fit, we fully expect to be blown away by the next generation of content creators.”

Together the companies will be exploring how they can further align their tools and platforms for their communities to make the creation and distribution of volumetric content in XR even more accessible and seamless for developers and end-users. Holton concluded: “This partnership is going to make the development and distribution of volumetric much easier for creators and brands alike. We’re excited about the possibilities this will give creators and the broader community.”

In addition to the partnership with Arcturus, Zappar has also announced a new partnership with Avatar SDK, a provider of AI-powered toolkits for the creation of avatars for use in the metaverse.

​​Victor Erukhimov, CEO for Itseez3D (the company behind Avatar SDK) commented: “Zappar’s combination of their overall mission to democratize AR and focus through their ZapWorks platform to simplify the creative process to build truly expressive AR activations sits very comfortably with the work we’re doing at Avatar SDK. We’re delighted to be partnering with them to see how we can push what’s possible with avatars when it comes to their use in augmented and mixed reality.”

Finally, Zappar has unveiled Zapvision, the company’s cutting edge computer vision technology and code system, which aims to help the blind and partially sighted instantly access information from products on supermarket shelves and cupboards at home via their smartphones. 

You can find out more information on both partnerships, as well as Zapvision on the Zappar blog, which details how creators and developers can get started with volumetric video using Arcturus and Zappar’s AR platform, ZapWorks.

Image credit: Zappar

About the author

Sam Sprigg

Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.