It was early in the morning and just came across an ARKit camera app called Flotogram. What makes this AR app so unique is that instead of putting 3D objects in the scene like many other AR camera apps do, this one places your photos directly into the scene all around you.
Flotogram allows you to use create and animate your captured photos in real-time. It’s really hard to express in words what this app helps to produce. In this review, you can find images and videos that will help to better illustrate the results you can achieve by using this app.
When I first saw the saw the app’s screenshots I didn’t even know what to think of it and I thought about tweeting the developer and ask him what this app is for. Instead of doing it, I just downloaded the app (it’s free) and I start experimenting with it.
What Floto Does and How to Use it?
Flotogram positions images that you take with the app itself into the augmented reality scene. All you need to do is to tap the middle of the screen and the camera capture a photo and positions it at the exact place which it was taken.
When I took the first image I thought that the screen was frozen, but then I saw the magic. I took a step back and I saw the image that I took a second ago floating in space right in front of me. I just stood there fascinated by that view because it’s the first time I actually experience something like that in augmented reality.
I’ve already played with ARKit apps that allows you to put objects in the 3D space, even animated gifs like GIPHY ARKit app but the experience was nothing close to that of Flotogram.
Flotogram has many advanced features that enhance the visual experience and the creative possibilities even more. For example, you can tell the app to automatically take photos as you move and even adjust the distance interval in meters. You can also capture consecutive images by selecting the frame rate which the images should be captured. You can change the photos opacity and even scale images up or down (size is shown in meters). You can tell the app to display Floto between a certain range in meters, set up layers and even animate the entire sequence of images in many creative ways.
The creator of Flotogram has made a great video that demonstrates all the available features of the app.
Please keep in mind that the UI was improved since that video was taken and it’s not like the one seen in the video.
The app supports photo capture at 90p, 180p, 360p and 720p resolutions. I assume that the resolution is restricted to allow smooth performance and it’s probably related to the limitations of the hardware of the devices this app is aimed for. I think that the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X can handle even higher resolutions and still run smoothly, so maybe we are going to see even higher resolutions in future updates.
Flotogram has many features, but it’s very intuitive and you can learn all its features pretty fast. When you start the app, it will greet you with a very short tutorial. It’s a very short tutorial but you get to understand the basics. From that point on you’ll just start exploring all the available features and experiment with them.
Who is this app Flotogram for?
This is the question that I asked myself the first time I saw this app. After toying around with it for a few hours I can definitely see it useful for creative people and photographers who are open to experimenting with any new image manipulation and editing tool that can allow them to produce unique, creative and inspiring photos and videos.
Having said that, anyone can enjoy using this app. If you enjoy being creative with camera filters, you might also find interest in this app as well. This is because both types of apps are designed to help you be more creative and come up with your own unique photos.
Here is a video I took when I started using the app for the first time.
Flotogram Needs to be More Social
The question that I’ve asked myself is whether there is a place to transform this app to a more social oriented one? If the location of photos and their orientation can be saved in the cloud, you can create an app that can show location-based photos taken by other people who visited the same place.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say that you are now near the Eiffel Tower in Paris during the day and you want to see how the place looks at night. You can then turn the social search option and see the photos that were taken at the same spot you are standing or a nearby spot (you have to walk by foot to that location) and observe the photo using the app. This can yield some stunning results and you can see the night shot against the daylight camera steam. You can even go back in time and see a photo that was taken at the end the Silvester of last year and see how the Eiffel tower looks back then.
I made an image to illustrate what I mean, here, take a look.
I just see this app way more than just a creative AR photo fractal app. I think that it can be way more than what it is now. The thing is that I think I have a feeling that Google or Facebook might be the first to bring such functionality into their social apps, but only time will tell.
AR Experience
You can clearly see that Flotogram was developed from the ground up for Augmented Reality (AR). The whole experience is built around exciting the viewer with an impressive AR scene containing pictures that he or she has taken.
I was playing around with the app and I came across a few scenes that look really interesting. For example, take a look at this image (sorry for the low quality, it was captured from a video feed).
This is an interesting and kind of a funny image. I took the image of my cat when it was behind the curtain. Then I playback the image so the image will appear a bit at the back. This created a funny image because you can’t see the cat because it’s hiding, but we all know what is behind the curtain after we see that image—it thinks it can hide, but it can’t LOL. That was just me toying around with Flotogram and trying to come up with some creative results. I’m sure the more I experiment with it, the more interesting and creative results would be.
Here is another example. You can see I am trying to draw a circular shape using photos and see if I can come up with something interesting. The thing is that there are endless creative possibilities.
I know, the image on the right looks like an AR panorama that got out of control, but I’m sure that just by watching it, your mind is currently thinking about how to take advantage of this app to come up with some amazing shots.
Conclusion
Flotogram is a very unique and innovative AR photography and video app. It’s one of the more inspiring and interesting ARKit camera apps that I’ve seen to date. I am always blown away by the creative ideas that people are with using Apple’s ARKit technology. This just shows you that when this technology reaches the hands of creative developers, you have no ideas what those developers will come up with. What I do know is that I’m going to see some really amazing apps and Flotogram is one of those apps.
That being said, I think there are great options to extend its usefulness for many more uses beyond what it does right now by making it more social and even for educational purposes.
Even as it is now, it functions as an advanced photographic tool for people who are searching ways to express their creativity. We’ve all seen how popular camera filter apps are and how much people enjoy playing with them. This is because many of us enjoy creating new things. Flotogram allows you to unleash your creativity in new ways that weren’t possible or very difficult to do before AR was introduced to the market. I’m sure many people will enjoy playing around with this app, particularly those who have interest in photography and visual art.
I really can’t wait to see what other users are going to create with it and what other features are going to come up next—Highly Recommended!