June 22nd, 2020
Pantomime’s Reality Faucet with Liquid LiDAR for 2020 iPad Pros Brings Realistic Physics to Augmented Reality

Pantomime Corporation has today launched the Reality Faucet augmented reality app which, on Apple’s iPad Pro 2020 models, uses new LiDAR depth tracking technology to seamlessly merge moving virtual objects with real environments in real time. The Liquid LiDAR in-app purchase lets users spray a kind of virtual liquid around their space, where it realistically flows across floors, behind furniture, and over irregularly shaped objects; bouncing off, flowing and pooling around real things; is pulled by gravity, fills containers; and physically interacts with other droplets and even with the iPad itself.

Liquid LiDAR is a milestone in augmented reality across several dimensions:

• Physics — hundreds of virtual objects collide with the real world — with seamless occlusion as virtual objects disappear behind real ones.
• Graphics — gorgeous translucent, shiny animated 3D droplets reflect the room, sky, and even details like floor tiles in each rolling, sliding bubble.
• Sound — dozens of 3D sound sources engulf users via their iPad Pro’s four speakers. Surrounded by liquid — when a big bubble pops behind a user, sounds stay put even as he turns and moves.
• Performance — high physics and graphics frame rates for hundreds of dynamic, interactive objects — with the user’s environment represented in tens of thousands of polygons — all ideally matched to the iPad Pro CPU, GPU, LiDAR and mobile tracking hardware.
• Cutting edge hardware and software — the app leverages new LiDAR hardware and iOS 13.4 with new Reality Kit software — all introduced by Apple in late March 2020.

“LiDAR is the biggest leap ever into realistic virtual worlds people can reach into,” says Pantomime co-founder and CEO David Levitt. “Where clunky VR headsets block out the environment and isolate users, augmented reality is about anchoring things in the real world. Until now, the standard for mobile AR was recognizing where the nearest flat floor or wall was. Now AR knows the exact shape of your space and all the irregular objects in it. Seeing virtual objects interact realistically with the real world is a new kind of magic.”

The Reality Faucet app and its Liquid LiDAR in-app purchase are available for 2020 iPad Pros at the App Store today.

Pantomime Corporation, founded in 2014, has created augmented reality apps, earning awards including the Silicon Valley World Cup, patents, and fans with the first physically realistic networked AR experiences.

Pantomime founders Dr. David Levitt and Don Hopkins were on the teams that invented virtual reality and created The Sims™. Their previous apps include the first augmented reality app Invisibility, Pantomime Bug Farm, and Creatures AR.