CARREFOUR AR

Carrefour is a French chain of hypermarkets and supermarkets. It operates in 34 countries on four continents. The first store was built at the intersection of five streets and hence the name Carrefour – which means “crossroads” in French.

Client

Carrefour

Sector

Retail

FMCG

Services

3D modeling

Animating

Technology

Unity 3D Vuforia

Visual results video

Business value

Success needs an appropriate setting

This is but one of the exciting and innovative ways to present all kinds of data that augmented reality applications offer. In addition, such apps present the client as an innovator and leader. After all, success needs to be manifested in the right way.

Besides, let’s face it: digital products, especially those that can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play, stand a considerable chance of surviving longer than any paper report.

Challenge

Present a year’s worth of work

The client needed an application that would summarize Carrefour’s past year in Poland in a unique way. It had to be something more durable than paper, as well as handy and easy to access anytime. One of the key points was the application’s user interface ability to interact with a printed report.

The challenge was to optimize media for the application to run smoothly without loss of quality. One of the assumptions was that the application was to be downloaded only once and then used without the need for an internet connection.

Of course, another solution would be to place the entire multimedia content on an external server, but in such a case users would have to access the internet when using the app. That is why we were asked that all the materials be already part of it.

Process and project scope

A twelve months’ story told with twenty images

In order to meet the requirements, we designed an augmented reality application containing 20 multimedia materials that would open after scanning relevant pages from the annual report.

Scope

We created an AR app that recognizes 20 individual images and, after scanning done with a smartphone’s camera, displays the corresponding multimedia content. The graphic content is scaled appropriately to match the screen size of a given mobile device, both vertically and horizontally. We added the application to the App Store and Google Play.

Process

Having started with the raw models of devices received from the client, we optimized them, reducing the number of polygons they contained, but without compromising the quality of the final product in any way. We designed textures for the models and added materials to make them look just like they appear in reality.

Collaboration

The preparation of the application required our close cooperation with the creative agency that prepared the annual report for the client. This was important, as they wanted to make sure that we used the appropriate pages from the report as target images for the app to display the multimedia content.

Fortunately, good communication allowed us to deliver the application in the required timeframe. In this case, we had to adapt to the way the agency worked, but it was possible to fully test the application at each stage.

Technology stack

Responsiveness – one of the tricks of the trade

This is mainly an Augmented Reality application featuring several custom, interactive objects, such as a timeline or a photo gallery. All the objects are responsive and work on both iOS and Android systems. The app was developed using the Unity 3D engine based on Vuforia.

Tech stack for VR/AR project at 4Experience