Today, we’re announcing we’ve acquired Scaniverse by Toolbox AI, a leading 3D scanning mobile application, and welcoming founder & CEO Keith Ito to Niantic. Scaniverse pioneered a fast and user-friendly way to capture, edit and share 3D content using a smartphone camera. Joining forces with Niantic, Scaniverse will make multi-OS scanning easier and more accessible to the Niantic Explorer community who contribute to this effort every day.
From Niantic’s founding, we set out to make the real world an adventure to be shared with friends by building towards a real-world metaverse. A key ingredient of this vision is a dynamic spatial map of the world rendered from 3D scanned locations. Working together with our players, we’ve crowdsourced an image library of some of the most unique and interesting Wayspots around the globe–from the Gandhi sculpture in San Francisco to the Maneki-Neko shrine in the Gotokuji Temple in Tokyo.
Our unique depth technology enables fast, accurate 3D location scanning using the standard RGB camera sensors available on most smartphones as well as newer LiDAR based phones. The easier it is to scan, the faster it is to build a 3D map of the world. Higher quality scans allow for more fun and engaging experiences Niantic can support as both a publisher and for third-party apps that use our Lightship platform.
Imagine everyone simultaneously experiencing Pokémon habitats in the real world, or digital characters taking us on a walking tour of hidden city gems, or friends leaving personal notes in real world locations to find later. This is what large-scale mapping can enable, and we’re excited to continue building its future.
- Kjell Bronder, Group Product Manager, AR