Augmented reality developer Niantic Inc.’s platform for web-based AR development, 8th Wall, today introduced hand tracking with all-new features that will allow developers to create apps that can add virtual objects to human hands, fingers and wrists.

Using the new Hand Tracking, developers will be able to go beyond simply permitting users to interact with AR holograms projected into the world by their device with simple collisions but also have them attached to their hands or their fingers. They will also be able to more precisely track the movement of individual fingers and knuckles.

8th Wall has created its own specialized hand model that can track the entire hand, including the palm and the wrist, allowing developers to create apps for fine-tuning attachment points for virtual objects that can rest on a user’s hand. The model includes up to 36 attachment points stretching across the fingers, knuckles, wrist and palm.

Adding individual fingers to web AR means that users could visit a retail website and see how a ring might look on individual fingers and turn their hands over to see it rotate. The same could be done with a wristwatch, bracelets and more.

Rings, bracelets and watches attached to the hand will automatically scale to fit the hand viewed by the device – and it’s even possible to add multiple rings to the hand at the different attachment points. This opens up a variety of ways that brands and retailers could use the technology to preview items for sale.

Watchmakers have used AR in the past to preview their products to prospective buyers. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. partnered with Snap Inc. to create an AR view of the Galaxy Watch 3 on users’ wrists and Seiko Epson Corp. turned to Instagram to create an AR filter to display the Grand Seiko timepiece.

Developers can also use hand tracking to create immersive experiences to allow users to pick up, move and deform objects with finger and hand movements. That opens up a variety of potential interactions for gaming and education where a greater level of interactivity with objects could help teach, such as moving molecules to react with one another or solving puzzles.

This release follows an expansion of 8th Wall’s Face Effects, originally released in 2020, which similarly allows augmenting human faces. The expansion to Face Effects added iris tracking, new tools for measuring the distance between pupils, multi-face support, enhanced tracking and better filters.

All of these capabilities Niantic calls part of “Human AR,” the ability to augment humans, which helps developers change how humans look through their own devices.

Because 8th Wall’s platform was built for the browser, these tools are available for users without the need to download any app. That means retailers, game developers and more can reach audiences with these sorts of experiences with greater ease. There’s less of a barrier than downloading an app and trying to get an AR experience running.

Image: Niantic