SURF-AR

SURF-AR is the first interactive AR surfing tutorial that can help you learn and improve your surfing skills. This experience combines sports and education in a fun and engaging way.

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Inspiration

Since I was 11 years old, surfing has gone from being a small summer hobby to a full-blown passion. Feeling the power of the ocean and the adrenaline of dropping into a wave is a truly exceptional sensation. Learning how to surf, however, can be a daunting task. Most people don’t know where to start or whom to learn from. Even for intermediate learners, improving your movements is a complicated feat without receiving advice from experienced surfers.

After going to AWE 2022 and hearing about the Snap Lensathon, I visited California and went to Santa Monica and Venice Beach. I there spent some time surfing, and got the chance to teach a friend the basics of the sport. Seeing them go through video tutorials prior to our surf session made me realize how non-interactive online teaching can be, especially for physical disciplines.

At that very moment the idea for SURF-AR started forming itself.

What it does

This Lens teaches anyone how to surf. No matter where you are, how much prior experience you have, how old you are, if you have a surfboard or not; you can learn how to surf and improve your form in 4 simple steps. SURF-AR guides you through the surfing process and captures a 3D version of yourself throughout those steps.

This allows anyone to capture and visualize their movements and positions in 3D, without any external help. As most resources on how to surf online are mostly in the form of videos and articles, being able to see yourself is a much more engaging experience.

How SURF-AR was built

SURF-AR was built on Lens Studio with precious help from Max van Leuween with his 3D mesh capture code. Many thanks to the Gospooky team in the Netherlands for the support and advice during the development of this project. The development of this project started at AR House in LA , and was inspired by the Californian atmosphere.

Challenges I ran into

Capturing different instances of a person in 3D and 2D simultaneously wasn’t simple. It took time to figure out the right timing on how to snap different textures to materials, and capture the right mesh for that texture.

Accomplishments

Spawning a surf board exactly on your foot and at the right ground position. Capturing and displaying a person in 3D during 3 different steps of the surfing process. Developing a comprehensive UI which can be easily interpreted from afar.

What I learned

The most valuable lesson from this project was that I could build augmented reality experiences for my passion of surfing, with the hopes of transferring this passion to others. I had always wondered in what form I could transfer this knowledge, and wanted to use augmented reality as a means to do so.

From a technical standpoint, learning how to capture a mesh and texture in real-time was a very insightful process. It was a challenge to build this project with features such as 3D body tracking, surface tracking, texture capturing, mesh capturing, audio feedback and UI all in one.

What's next for SURF-AR

The first step would be polishing the experience and adding a scoring system for how good your movements are. A next big step is to bring this concept to other sport disciplines with accurate movements such as running, at-home workouts, and golfing. Become a RUN-AR or GOLF-AR.

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