A Moon around the Eiffel Tower
Today, we’re happy to introduce the Eiffel Moon, the first augmented reality experience made for the Eiffel Tower and that you can now try on Snapchat!
The “most-everything” landmark
Last week, the Eiffel Tower celebrated its 130 years old birthday. Opened on the 31 March 1889 for the World’s Fair, the 324 meters tower became that day the tallest man-made structure in the world and kept that record for 41 years.
Made of wrought-iron and designed by Gustave Eiffel, it is the most-visited paid monument in the world with 6.91M people who ascended it in 2015.
According to Sony, La dame de Fer is also the most Instagrammed landmark in the world with 4.654.699 posts published since 2013; before Big Ben, London (2.4M) and the Empire State Building, NYC(1.5M).
From concept to reality
When Snapchat offered us the opportunity to experiment their latest AR technologies, Laurent, Francois and I were amazed by what was possible.
As a symbol of progress and romanticism, we finally chose to put an imaginary Moon into orbit around the Eiffel Tower. We wanted a concept both simple and memorable for everyone and the celestial object sounded like the perfect idea.
Visible from the Champ de Mars to the Trocadero, the blue-toned Lunar planet is dressed with futuristic textures while its slow and graceful orbit periodically makes it disappear behind the tower for a few secondes, depending on where you are.
To keep the user captivated, we added some threatening lightnings striking the tower with more and more intensity. If you are attentive, you will also notice many details such as the shadow of the moon reflecting on the tower or the flickering of your phone screen caused by the electric waves.
Check out this video for a preview! Much better IRL :)
Powered by Lens Studio
When you think about it, it is quite stunning to be able to run such a rich AR experience (world tracking, occlusion, physics simulation, shadows, …) just by opening an app on your smartphone. All that was made possible thanks to the amazing combo of Snapchat camera and the power of Lens Studio.
In only a few months, Snapchat has been able to build a community of talented creators from all over the world. We were lucky to gather all together last November during the first Lens Festival in Los Angeles, California.
With Snapchat opening this morning a new chapter in mobile AR, the future of augmented reality has never been brighter and we’re glad to be part of it!
