April 7, 2020 – Magic Leap has today announced that Figmin is now live on Magic Leap World. Figmin, which was developed by mixed reality company, Overlay, was created as part of Magic Leap’s Independent Creator Program.
According to a blog post by Magic Leap, Javier Davalos, founder of Overlay, applied his vision for spatial and imagination for design concepts to create Figmin, a multi-purpose platform for creating, collecting and playing with holograms.
Commenting on why he built the platform, Davalos said: “Making just an editor, or a game, would have been easier, but by building a platform we bring together people with different skill sets that synergize to create amazing experiences”.
With Figmin, Davalos hopes people will have more tools, another ecosystem and network to contribute to the growing world of spatial in a way that is both exciting and fun, but also helps accelerate adoption.
The platform allows anyone to begin creating with Magic Leap, regardless of their technical abilities. Figmin users can leverage its built-in 3D model editor to create custom holograms, and can then combine them together to enable complete spatial experiences. Users can also 3D-scan the geometry of real objects in a room, and turn those into holograms – which can be edited and modified directly within any of the built-in editors.
“Design wise, it was quite an adventure,” said Davalos. “There was a lot of experimenting and testing that took place to come up with a series of mechanics that would enable users to perform three specific activities – create, collect, and play – within the same application, in a way that was both simple and comprehensive.”
Figmin also introduces an innovative control mechanic that is designed to work with both Motion Controllers and Hand Tracking systems: The Contextual Hand User Interface “CHUI”. It consists of a UI element that is always in the user’s hands, but it’s content depends on what they are doing and what they are pointing at. For example, if a user is grabbing an object, they can transform it. But if a user is just pointing at it, they can open up a full menu of edit options.
CHUIgif image
Furthermore, Figmin grants users the ability to manipulate the physics of holograms to create unique experiences. With a built-in physics editor, users can bring models to life by adjusting properties such as mass, friction, drag – and even bounciness. Users can also build, test and play in zero-gravity environments for a new and unique design experience.
Above all else, Figmin is intended to foster community and inspiration, according to Magic Leap. Users are encouraged to exchange and collect digital content with other makers through QR codes generated for each Figmin creation – or by simply discovering content created by the community directly through the Figmin application.
Figmin’s 3D UI is built from the ground up, and the entire application was designed from inception to be an online shared experience.
In the coming months and years, the team at Overlay plans to continue developing Figmin and introduce new tools, editors, multiplayer access, and even freehand controls. The company has an aim of creating the tools, design capabilities, and community that will inspire people to change the world through spatial technology.
Image/video credit: Magic Leap/Figmin
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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.