One of the most memorable music videos of the 1980s is A-ha’s “Take On Me” featuring a young woman who’s pulled into a world that looks like it only exists as crude pencil sketches. The video took 16 weeks to animate by hand, but Trixi Studios created an augmented reality app that can recreate the effect in real-time.
Ever since Apple announced the availability of ARKit—a suite of new tools that make it easier to add augmented reality features to an app—at its WWDC event back in June, iPhone and iPad users have been anticipating how developers will use AR in new and unique ways.
Trixi Studios’ ‘Take On Me’ app isn’t exactly a must-have feature for your phone, but watching it turn this home into a series of simple doodles inhabited by a virtual performer makes smartphones seem amazing again. And it’s experiments like this that will eventually lead to augmented reality breakthroughs we won’t be able to live without.
[YouTube via prosthetic knowledge]