Democratizing Creative Expression in Extended Reality
The Jandig project was born in 2011, driven by a simple idea: to democratize Augmented Reality (AR) as an artistic and educational medium. We recognized AR’s potential but noted the high barrier to entry—requiring coding and design skills. Our mission became creating a tool that enables curators and artists to bring interactive experiences to life without technical or design knowledge.
Our technology can effectively bridge the digital realm and the symbolic power of traditional cultural narratives, inspiring our current focus: Mixed Reality (MR).
What it does
Jandig MR is an open-source app empowering artists to create and publish Mixed Reality (MR) narratives. We leverage Jandig's web-based Content Management System (CMS) to publish and manage the assets we use in Jandig MR.
Creators can choose an Exhibition (asset group) already published on the CMS. The Exhibition opens right in front of the creator, who "grabs" and position every Object (a 2D or 3D animated scene) to create a narrative that happens tied to the physical space.
How We Built It: Key Technological Decisions & Architecture
- MR-Native SDK Integration: We prioritize native integration with the Meta Quest SDK for features like Passthrough, Spatial Anchoring, and Hand Gestures.
- 3D Content Pipeline Readiness: Our current architecture is explicitly designed to handle 3D model ingestion, preparing the system for the visual demands of immersive spatial narratives and spatial audio.
- Open Source: Licensed under GPLv3, ensuring the source code is easily forkable, inspectable, and scalable by our global community of developers and artists.
Challenges We Faced: Bridging AR Limitations to MR Potential
Our core challenge was the transition from AR to MR. This involved:
- Adapting Narrative Design to Spatial Computing: Transitioning from linear, 2D narratives to the non-linear, spatial storytelling demanded by MR, where the user's movement is integral to the experience.
- Technical Integration & Simplicity: Simplifying the asset ingestion and handling, ensuring creators don't need specialized software skills.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Easy to Use: We achieved our core goal, making MR content authoring and publishing a simple process.
- Pioneering MR Culture: We are creating a new way to tell stories, actively pioneering complex, accessible spatial narratives.
What we learned
- Native MR is Key: High-performance MR requires native SDK integration (Passthrough, spatial anchors) over generic web views, driving our current architectural pivot.
- The Content Paradox: Simplicity for the creator must be prioritized, even if it adds complexity to our code.
- Community Defines Roadmap: Valuable feature suggestions come directly from non-technical users, confirming our need to trust the community.
What's next for Jandig MR (Roadmap to the Horizon Store)
The future development is laser-focused on fully realizing the potential of MR and achieving seamless deployment via the Meta Horizon Store.
- MR-Native Development: Fully integrate the Meta Quest Spatial SDK to improve Spatial Anchors and implement real-world object interaction.
- Accessibility & UX: Refine the user experience and implement simple-language Audiodescription standards for all MR content.
- Community & Outreach: Develop comprehensive video tutorials and documentation for the Meta Quest creation flow.
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