MeccaAR

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Inspiration

Inspired by MECCHA CHAMELEON, MeccaAR turns real-world spaces into a shared AR hide-and-seek game. Instead of dropping flat map pins, players scan physical surfaces, hide custom 3D characters, and challenge their community to hunt them down through their camera.

What it does

One Moment of Input (<60s): Place the 3D character, customize it, and scan the surface to finalize its location
Non-Trivial Transformation: Transforms video frames & room geometry into a persistent 3D AR spatial anchor mapped to serverless PostGIS coordinates.
Public Map Feed: Strangers discover nearby hunt zones on a live map (exact locations unlock within ~4m). Finding Meccas that have stayed hidden longer grants bonus points
AR Relocalization & Hunt: Hunters scan the area to relocalize the exact 3D character in camera view.
Claiming & Leaderboards: Tap to claim in AR, earn dynamic points, and compete on the live community leaderboard.

How we built it

Client: Swift, SwiftUI, ARKit, RealityKit, MapKit, Core Location.
Spatial Engine: Hybrid localization combining 2D PostGIS geographic queries with 3D ARWorldMap camera tracking.
3D Pipeline: Dynamic USDZ normalization, runtime material swaps, collision shape generation, and face texture mapping.
Backend: Neon Postgres + PostGIS with secure serverless SQL RPCs (nearby_hunt_zones, claim_placement).

Challenges we ran into

Indoor GPS Drift: Solved multi-meter GPS inaccuracy by using PostGIS for coarse discovery and ARKit feature points for centimeter-accurate indoor relocalization.
Dynamic 3D Customization: Overcame RealityKit USD constraints to enable live scaling, rotation, color swaps, and selfie texture mapping at runtime.
Sub-60s Input vs. Spatial Data Capture: Balancing a fast less than 60sec user input flow with capturing enough ARKit spatial data (surface planes, feature point maps) required to accurately anchor 3D objects in physical space.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Close-proximity AR Persistence: Restoring room-scale 3D character placement across sessions.
Sub-60s UX: Seamless placement flow with live 3D controls and instant selfie texture mapping.
Clean Architecture: Modular Swift code maintaining strict feature boundaries.

What we learned

Building for Real-World AR: Designing persistent, spatial experiences using Apple's ARKit and RealityKit.

Real-Time ARKit World Mapping: Utilizing ARKit's world-mapping models (ARWorldMap) to capture room geometry, align surfaces, and render 3D objects in real time across sessions.

What's next for MeccaAR

Enhanced Proximity & Precision Sensing: Improving GPS and floor-level altitude tracking to give hunters hyper-precise proximity feedback when they enter the 8-meter hunt zone.
Original Characters & Animations: Commissioning custom 3D character models with procedural animations, audio feedback.