This paper introduces a mobile-based solution that enhances online shoe shopping through 3D modeling and Augmented Reality (AR), leveraging the efficiency of 3D Gaussian Splatting. Addressing the limitations of static 2D images, the framework generates realistic 3D shoe models from 2D images, achieving an average Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) of 32, and enables immersive AR interactions via smartphones. A custom shoe segmentation dataset of 3120 images was created, with the best-performing segmentation model achieving an Intersection over Union (IoU) score of 0.95. This paper demonstrates the potential of 3D modeling and AR to revolutionize online shopping by offering realistic virtual interactions, with applicability across broader fashion categories.

Social media company and Snapchat maker Snap has for years defined itself as a "camera company," despite its failures to turn its photo-and-video recording glasses known as Spectacles into a mass-market product and, more recently, its decision to kill off its camera-equipped drone. But that hasn't stopped the company from envisioning a future where AR glasses are a commonly used device, and one, as the company revealed on Tuesday's fourth-quarter earnings call, that will eventually be powered by AI technology. Investors wanted to get a sense of how Snap was thinking about the latest developments in AI -- particularly in buzzy areas like generative AI. which has benefited from advances in algorithms, language models and the increased processing power available to run the necessary calculations. One pointed to the AI image generator Midjourney's bot for Discord as an example of how AI could lead to increased user engagement within an app. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel agreed that, in the near term, there were a lot of opportunities to use generative AI to make Snap's camera more powerful.

With over 210 million daily active users, Snapchat remains one of the top applications that people use to enjoy augmented reality experiences. The app's wide variety of AR features lets users do everything, from giving their digital selves some doggie ears to adding realistic 3D effects and transformations. Snap has always been proactive about letting people come up with new ideas and designs, with Lens Studio allowing developers to "create, publish, and share Lenses" across the platform. To date, Snap reports over 1 million custom Lenses created. With the Lens Studio 3.0 update, Snap has now introduced new features, such as voice command search for Lenses, using custom ML models and ML templates within Lens Studio, and gathering visual data from Snaps for 3D geographic mapping.

Snapchat's augmented reality dreams might be starting to look a bit more realistic. The company has been subtly improving its AR-powered Lenses every year, improving the technical odds-and-ends and strengthening its dev platform. The result is that today, more than 170 million people -- over three-quarters of Snap's daily active users -- access the app's augmented reality features on a daily basis, the company says. Two years ago, Snap shared that creators had designed over 100,000 lenses on the platform; now Snap says there have been more than 1 million lenses created. The goofy filters are bringing users to the app and the company is slowly building a more interconnected platform around augmented reality that is beginning to look more and more promising.