Illust Space
Illust Space is the open augmented reality infrastructure for the world. We give you the tools to mix the digital and physical like never before.
Our platform has four major pillars; The Space, Publishing Tools, The Lab, and The Marketplace.
Each of these is essential to solving how we humans will interact with the digital world in our physical reality.
The Space –
The Space is an augmented reality metaverse layered on top of the physical world.
Think of it as a Google Maps like interface where each pin is a reference to a digital asset.
To interact with that digital asset you can find it on our desktop version (above) and investigate its properties, or navigate to it in the physical world for the full augmented reality experience.
Anyone with a smartphone can open our web-based discovery app AR.illust.space (below), navigate to a piece, and, once in range, it will appear in your field of view, anchored to its location with GPS coordinates or to a person as a wearable.
The Space currently supports pictures, videos, 3D models and audio. We will be adding support for new file types including gifs, generative/code based experiences, virtual reality portals, and dynamic smart contracts in the near future.
Combining technologies like geolocation, AR, smart contracts, and proof of attendance we start to see how the digital and physical can be remixed to create new kinds of human experiences.
A lot of web2 was about digitizing the physical with new economic models. Clubhouse as a digital conference call, Netflix the digital DVD store.
The question our team keeps coming back to is what kind of new experiences can we create with digital augmentation? An audio walk through a park where each trail is a song on an album? An interactive virtual science museum? The world’s largest art gallery?
No one can predict what AR experiences we’ll find valuable 3, 5, or 10 years down the road. So, we ask the same question to you. Our team built the tools but it’s on us all to figure out how best to use them.
Publishing Tools –
Our Publishing Tools are a set of features that give individuals the agency to curate and design all of the assets in The Space. Everything you need to build your world.
Our first release is the Wallet to World feature. A collector facing tool that lets you connect an Ethereum wallet, import your NFTs into augmented reality, and curate them on the map with just a few clicks.
Coming later is a creative studio to give 2D and 3D artists more control over the scenes they build.
In the pipeline are tools for generative artists, private maps, digital land rights, AR wearables, tokenized access/permissions, and a host of other goodies.
The Lab –
Headed by our fearless creative team, The Lab serves as a North Star example for the kind of digital experiences we’d like to see in the world and our source for the cutting edge R&D needed to develop new tools for the community.
Core to the Illust philosophy is that we believe in the new artistic medium that lies at the intersection of augmented reality, geolocation, and dynamic smart contracts. These allow us to create artwork and experiences that couldn’t exist with previous technologies. Our team works with artists, musicians, and developers around the world to push the envelope on what’s possible in this new medium.
So far we’ve launched the world’s first augmented reality NFTs, wearable NFTs, open AR metaverse, geolocated public digital art, lendable AR NFTs, and traveling AR art exhibition. These bold endeavors push our development team to build the tools necessary to deploy them and, as the tools become good enough for public consumption, we give them back to the community in the form of new features.
The Marketplace –
The Illust Marketplace is a place for you to transfer ownership of your NFTs while they remain in augmented reality.
So far we’ve minted over 50 pieces of augmented reality art from artists ranging from AR natives to physical sculptors. Each NFT gives the owner the right to curate the piece In The Space and our world. Meaning they can move its location, make it public or private, lend it to a collection or project, and change its orientation as well as a few other factors depending on the artist’s settings.
“Meaning they can move its location, make it public or private, lend it to a collection or project, and change its orientation as well as a few other factors depending on the artist’s settings.”
In the future the marketplace will expand to include things like ticketed AR experiences, proof of attendance, seamless transactions and access to experiences via NFTs. We are working on bespoke curated maps, transfer of digital space rights (creating domains for your PFPs to roam), new models of ownership, generative remixable content, and many more features that support individual ownership rights in a digital world.
Conclusion –
These four pillars make up the foundation of the Illust Space. They are the most basic versions of the tools we need to begin building in the AR layer on top of our world. We’ll be releasing more over time and are excited to see how you use them. As with all early stage projects, any feedback you can provide us on your experience is invaluable.
We can’t thank our early supporters enough. You’re the reason we’ve made it this far and we will continue to support you in any way that we can.
We’re always on the lookout for individuals interested in Web3 and AR/VR to help us build the future. If you have any questions feel free to drop us a line. Our inboxes are always open!