Today in the Layar Creator, you may notice a few small changes we’ve made that will go a long way to improve your experience.

Tooltips and Pre-Filled Forms

First, you’ll notice that many of the menus for adding a button now have tooltips and pre-filled entries to make them easier to understand. It helps a lot when using buttons like the “Download App” button, in which you need to enter URL links to the App Store or Google Play store. A handy tooltip now walks you through how to find these URLs.

In the example above, a tooltip provides a nice suggestion for helping to sort messages you might receive from users of the “Email us” button.

Easier Purchase of Individual Pages

Below is the next improvement we’ve made today – purchasing pages. Previously if you wanted to purchase individual pages, you had to do so at the moment of publication, only bundles could be purchased on their own outside of publishing. Now, both can be purchased at any time, not just when publishing!

Better Analysis of Pages

And finally, we’ve implemented a system which performs a more detailed check of your images when you upload them. Previously we did a quick check to save time, but a more detailed check is also needed. Now we do both!

When you upload your image, after the first quick check, we now perform a more detailed analysis, but you can already get to work adding content to your pages while we check. You’ll see an “ANALYZING” badge on the thumbnails of your pages until it finishes.

In only takes a few moments, and if your page doesn’t pass the check, you will not be able to use it in the Creator. In most cases (like in the example above), a page will be disabled because it is either blank, or contains text only, but symmetry and repetitive patterns can be tricky as well.

These kinds of images are hard for users to scan and will not result in the best experience for users. Trust us, its for your own good! But chances are your images will be fine and you’ll never see this message.

And more!

These are just the most visible changes we’ve made to the Creator today. We’ve also fixed our share of bugs and made other improvements behind-the-scenes that will make the Creator faster, more stable and more robust. 

Enjoy!

On a scale of 1-10 for exciting Layar announcements, this one goes to 11; we proudly present… Layar Vision! 

With Layar Vision, digital experiences are launched from visual triggers like magazines, posters and newspapers. Layar Vision uses computer vision techniques to augment objects in the physical world. 

The Layar browser can tell which objects in the real world are augmented because the visual fingerprints of the objects are preloaded into the application based upon the user’s layer selection. When a user aims their device at an object that matches the fingerprint, the app instantaneously returns the associated AR experience. 

This new functionality lets layers become truly immersive as seemingly ordinary objects come alive with interactivity. 

“We are really excited about this release. Mobile devices can finally ‘see’,” said Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, Layar co-founder and General Manager. “By adding Layar Vision we are taking an important step towards making augmented reality more effective. With Layar Vision we enable developers to create easy and fast user experiences. It quickly detects multiple enriched objects around a user at any given time.” 

Layar Vision can easily be added to existing location-based layers, so developers can essentially “upgrade” the layers they already have to include Layar Vision. We’ll be including this feature in our next major Layar Player update as well, allowing simple integration with standalone apps for both iPhone and Android! 

To kickstart the launch of Layar Vision, we’re hosting a Layar Creation Challenge, worth $55,000 in total cash prizes! The 10 developers who create the most useful, creative or otherwise impressive layers with Layar Vision will receive anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000! 

The winners will be chosen by our international jury of AR wizards. We are releasing the Android client and publishing platform with Layar Vision enabled in beta in the coming weeks so you can start building! 

Registration is now open, so enter today! To get started, take a look at the documentation and watch our Layar Vision video for inspiration!