Borrowed from the synthesiser

ARSynth is an open source tool for making augmented reality scenes. You build a scene in the browser and get a QR code for it. Print the code on a poster or put it on the screen behind the stage. People scan it and the scene opens on their phone.

Objects are flat planes in space. Give them a colour, or fill them with an image or a video. Their position, rotation, scale and opacity can each be driven by an oscillator. You pick a waveform (sine, square, triangle, sawtooth or noise) and set its amplitude, period and phase. Oscillators stack, so one object can turn slowly while it drifts up and down on a small sine.

You rarely plan a scene from start to finish. You turn a knob and keep what surprises you.

To share your work you make a Show. A Show has one QR code that never changes, and plays one Scene at a time. Switch the Scene from the dashboard and everyone who is watching sees the new one within seconds. At a concert, you can change the visuals between sets without printing a new code.

An object can carry a link, so viewers can tap it. You can also tie a scene to a venue, so it lines up with the real space.

Free and open source

ARSynth was paid for with public money. It is free to use, and there is no paid version planned. The code is on GitHub under the MIT licence, so you can fork it and run your own version.

To make scenes you need an account, which stores your email address. Besides that, ARSynth stores your scenes and the media you upload. It collects nothing about your audience, and there is no analytics or tracking.

Viewers do not install anything. On Android the scene opens in the browser, through WebXR. On iOS an App Clip starts when the code is scanned, so there is no trip to the App Store.

Next Stage AR

ARSynth was made for Next Stage AR, a project that helps Dutch music venues and festivals work with AR using open tools. Thunderboom started it. Superposition built the software, together with VNPF, Beeld en Geluid and a group of venues.

With support from Cultuurloket DigitALL.

The report

Next to the software, Femke Vandenberg and Frank Kimenai wrote a report. They looked at how Dutch venues and artists can use AR on phones without depending on commercial platforms. They ran pilot concerts and tested with audiences.