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Apple Launches Environmental AR Experience For iPad

Create your own unique plants and share them with artists across the world.

Yesterday, Apple revealed Deep Field, an immersive augmented reality (AR) art app powered by iPad and Apple Pencil. Developed by Australian artists and creative technologists Tin Nguyen and Edward Cutting of Tin&Ed, the interactive experience tasks you with creating your own unique flora and fauna using a variety of colors, shapes, and textures.

Credit: Apple

Upon completion, your virtual plants are uploaded to a global database alongside various others created by artists from across the globe. You can then use the LiDAR scanner featured on the iPad Pro to view these creations in your real-world space. Watch as plant life blossoms on the walls, floors, and ceilings of your environment.

According to Apple, the goal of Deep Field is to encourage creativity while, simultaneously, highlighting the importance of environmental conservation. In order to accomplish their goals, the team utilized Apple’s ARKit framework to create 3D plant structures in AR.

Credit: Apple

“For us, AR is a powerful artistic medium for storytelling because it is immersive and multisensory,” said Tin Nguyen, an artist at Tin&Ed. “The power of the M2 chip on iPad Pro has made it possible to create a work that enables children from across the globe to imagine new worlds together in real-time.”

Deep Field encourages children to look, listen, and think more deeply about the natural world and their place within it,” added Edward Cutting, another artist at Tin&Ed. “We hope they come away from the experience feeling a sense of wonder and curiosity and a deeper connection to nature and each other.”

In addition to AR, Deep Field makes use of a multichannel soundscape featuring a variety of natural sounds captured by audio naturalist Martyn Stewart.

Credit: Apple

Deep Field is a new opportunity for our youngest visitors to experience the intersection of art and technology,” said Dr. Michael Brand, the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s director. “Thanks to the vision of Tin&Ed, with the experience starting in our Yiribana Gallery, each participant will be invited to look closely at nature through the lens of the world’s oldest continuous cultures, as depicted in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artworks.”

“Children will also be encouraged to connect with their surroundings by observing and responding to the magnificent natural landscape, which is seamlessly integrated into our new art museum campus in Sydney on Gadigal Country.”

Credit: Apple

Deep Field recently premiered at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney and the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The experience is available now to students and families at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Deep Field will then be available at the Getty Center in Los Angeles from Saturday, July 8th to Sunday, July 16th.

For more information check out the official announcement here.

Feature Image Credit: Apple

About the Scout

Former Writer (Kyle Melnick)

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