Can mobile AR present complex products in lifelike 3D detail — and let a whole team explore them together?
We combined mobile augmented reality with high-quality 3D models so products and ideas can be experienced viscerally — at full scale, from every angle. A Niantic Lightship multiplayer mode lets up to eight people explore the same model together in AR.
AR Model Showcase
2021
We wanted to test whether a consumer smartphone could deliver high-fidelity, manipulable 3D product visualization to boost sales conversation — and whether AR could be a shared, multi-person experience rather than a solo one.
A Unity-built AR app for Android and iOS that renders detailed 3D models in the user's real space, with animations and dynamic interactions to show how things work.
The problem space
Some products simply don't sell from a page. Industrial equipment, large fixtures, and complex mechanisms need to be seen at scale, rotated, and — ideally — animated to show how they work. Shipping physical samples to every meeting is slow and expensive; flat catalogues undersell the product. Mobile AR promised to put a full-fidelity, interactive 3D model in anyone's hands. The R&D question: was phone-based AR good enough for high-stakes sales and education, and could it be made collaborative?
people can explore one model together in real time (Niantic Lightship multiplayer)
platforms supported from a single Unity codebase
proven use-case settings: sales meetings, classrooms, and trade shows
Technology choices
What we evaluated, what we chose, and why.
A cross-platform engine that runs the app on both Android and iOS from one codebase, with high customizability — and a clear path to reuse the same work on headsets (e.g., Oculus Quest 2, AR glasses) later.
The multiplayer layer (from the company behind Pokémon Go). It lets up to eight people work on a 3D model together in AR, which is what moves the app from a solo viewer to a professional collaboration tool.
Rejected. Building separately per OS would have doubled effort and closed off the headset roadmap; Unity gave one codebase and future portability.
Rejected for this app because it couldn't deliver the high-fidelity rendering we wanted here. Flagged as the right answer to the install-friction problem — and pursued directly in our follow-on project, refined.ar.
The POC in action
The working thing — capabilities, not a scope list.
Detailed 3D models render at real scale in the user's environment — far more informative than a 2D image, and manipulable from any angle.
Models can show how something works — moving parts, sequences, stages — which is exactly what catalogues and photos can't do.
Via Niantic Lightship, a group can gather around the same virtual model in AR and explore it together in real time.
One Unity codebase ships to both Android and iOS, with the engine choice keeping a path open to AR headsets.
Results & takeaways
Honest feasibility findings.
Unity rendered detailed, animated models convincingly on both platforms — viable for real sales meetings, trade shows, and classrooms.
Niantic Lightship multiplayer (up to eight people on one model) showed AR working as a shared professional tool, not a solo novelty.
To launch an AR presentation, the viewer has to install the app — a meaningful barrier for one-off sales demos or trade-show walk-ups where you can't ask a prospect to download anything.
Develop it for industries that sell or teach with large, complex objects. Manufacturing and industrial-equipment sales (present a full-scale machine without shipping it), medical-device sales and training, and STEM education are the clearest verticals for the high-fidelity, multiplayer experience. The browser-based, no-install path we explored next in refined.ar is what makes reaching those buyers and classrooms practical at scale.
