Snapchat has announced the winners of its 2022 Build the Future Lensathon, which called on AR creators to come up with innovative, creative and engaging AR experiences in the app.

More than 3,000 developers took part in the competition, and competed for $200,000 in total prizes. The selected winners demonstrate both innovative use of AR and creative thinking, with some interesting perspectives on future AR development on display.

As per the above clip, the to prize went to Denis Rossiev for his AR Lens ‘VOXELIZE’.

“VOXELIZE, is a real-time AR voxel scanner that exports 3D models as .glbs. VOXELIZE’s intuitive two-finger touch gestures can be used to effortlessly scale and rotate the voxel grid for precise resolution selection and alignment with the walls or borders of the target object. A built-in machine-learning model automatically segments objects from the background, streamlining the scanning process. Scans can then be exported as .glbs for editing in any 3D software.”

Snap says that VOXELIZE has a broad range of applications across construction, architecture, interior design, highlighting both the creativity and utility of AR applications.

The other winners included:

• Inna Sparrow and Volodymyr Kurbatov for their Lens which enables users to create, style, and save your own AR footwear
• Farhad Shababi and Faraz Shababi for their Mystery of King Tut experience
• Blake Gross and Dustin Kochensparger for ‘Table Towers’, an AR game
• Danny Marree and Max van Leeuwen who created a farmer’s life simulation

There are some interesting uses of AR here, which also point to the future of AR, as seen through AR glasses, and experienced in full view. Which Snapchat is working on, and while we haven’t heard much about the next stage of Spectacles as yet, you can see how Snap’s more advanced AR offerings lean into this more immersive experience.

You can check out all the winners, and try out the Lenses for yourself at this link.