First previewed last year, Adobe Inc.’s augmented reality app product Adobe Aero lets artists import graphics formats from other programs, such as Dimension’s 3-D models or Photoshop and Illustrator’s 2-D layers, and make them into interactive AR experiences.

By design, Aero, released today, is intended to be as intuitive as possible for designers and requires zero coding experience to create immersive next-generation AR experiences. The objective of the app is to allow artists to make anything into a creative canvas by providing the ability for designers to pick an object in the real world and attach an AR experience to it.

The app was originally released into a private beta during Adobe MAX last year and put into the hands of numerous creatives. According to the company, thousands of users participated and at the same time Adobe launched its Adobe AR Residency program. The current app is the result of that collaboration.

During the beta period for Aero, Adobe identified a number of areas and features that an AR app needed to fulfill.

The first is the need to enable a broad, nontechnical audience to use AR, and that means making it accessible without the need for coding experience. As a result, Aero’s user interface is visual, with step-by-step instructions for creating the first AR scene.

Animations also come front-and-center by using gesture controls and the device to place objects in the real world and add triggers so that viewers can interact with objects.

At launch, Aero also arrives with hundreds of free starter assets available right in the app. The software also makes it very easy to import files – both 2-D and 3-D models and file formats – from a multitude of other programs, including Adobe Photoshop files, OBJ, FBX, Collada, glTF and many more.

Finally, the app makes it very easy to publish and share AR experiences. Creators can share their work directly on social media or within the app itself to connected parties.

The app is currently only available for iOS and is available right now for free in the Apple App Store.

Making AR accessible to more audiences

For the past two years, Adobe has been hosting the Festival of the Impossible, an annual curated collection of six AR artists exploring how immersive media is ushering in a new era. With the launch of Aero, artists featured in FOI have been updating their projects to use the platform.

For example, Adobe AR Resident and FOI participant Gabe Barcia-Colombo recently updated his project, “Descent,” with Aero. Using immersive AR as an art form, his artwork allows visitors to look inside the dreams, hopes and fears of avatars he created from scans of real people.

“The thing I like about working in interactive media is that you can bring things off the screen and into the real world,” Barcia-Colombo said. “And you can really cause this amazing effect in people where they don’t realize how this is possible.”

Photo: Adobe