AR Content in Paris key visual hero asset

AR Content for Google Maps in Paris

First-of-its-kind AR content launch in Google Maps in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture

Full-service creative campaign brings Geospatial 3D to cultural landmarks in Paris

Services:

Consulting: Concept creation

Delivery: Emerging technology proof of concept

Tech: Web AR, Adobe Aero, 3D capture, photogrammetry, geospatial

Industry: Development, retail

Key contributors:

Preston Platt

Basak Akman

Patrick Johnson

Anna Kite

About the project

At Google I/O 2024, Google’s Augmented Reality (AR) and Google Maps teams made a groundbreaking announcement: the integration of AR content into the native Google Maps mobile app. With an estimated 1 billion people actively using Google Maps every month, the move brings immersive content directly to mass audiences and represents a giant leap towards dissolving traditional barriers to AR adoption and discoverability.

In preparation for the greatly anticipated Google I/O, Google AR & VR, together with Google Arts and Culture and Google Maps, approached Rock Paper Reality as the full-service immersive partner of choice. The mission: leverage the new AR content in Google Maps integration to bring the history, arts and culture of world-famous Paris to life in an entirely new way. Knowing our deep knowledge of Adobe Aero and Google’s Geospatial development, our extensive history in AR deployments and our proprietary optimization process for 3D asset creation, RPR was the perfect fit.

The challenge

The challenge was to create an immersive experience that would reimagine existing landmarks in Paris, enabling users to peer into the past and discover interactive information about each site. This would mean recreating treasured points of interest in stunning 3D, to be world-anchored and deployed within the native Google Maps mobile app. Calling upon the archives of the Google Arts and Culture platform and technical drawings of the Exposition Universelle, the experience would open arts and culture to a mass audience while remaining faithful to original sources.

As the experience was a key component in Google’s AR content in Google Maps announcement and launch strategy, we would also create a suite of marketing assets ready for use at Google I/O and beyond.

The Solution

Our development team worked with historians and Google Arts and Culture to authentically recreate 16 buildings in jaw-dropping 3D, including the world-famous Eiffel Tower. Thanks to our proprietary optimization process, we were able to develop all assets to the highest quality, while still maintaining the recommended 20mbs file size, high performance and fast load times. This ensured the most streamlined and frictionless user experience possible.

When the activation was ready, our media team traveled to Paris to shoot marketing collateral. This involved creating a suite of ready-to-use assets including a full-length case study video and teaser video, hero assets and social media visuals. Understanding how to design, deploy and capture the entire experience end-to-end ensured the Google teams had everything they needed to launch a revolutionary product to a world of developers, agencies, brands and users.

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14 April 2022