Amazon’s Sumerian Tool Can Be Used To Develop AR And VR Experiences

Amazon is doing its bit for the advancement of augmented and virtual reality technology with the launch of Sumerian. It’s a browser-based tool for developing augmented reality and virtual reality experiences. The web app should make it easier for developers to build 3D experiences for multiple platforms. Amazon’s Sumerian tool is available in limited preview started today. The wider rollout will take place in the coming months.

Amazon has built this tool to be simple enough that developers who are new to this can create experiences while ensuring that the tool is powerful enough that it can easily create engaging content.

Sumerian enables developers to combine 3D models together in scenes that will be used in virtual reality and augmented reality applications at launch. It comes with its own object library that’s full of models that developers can use. They have also been given the ability to import assets from FBX and OBJ files.

Developers will also be given access to a set of “hosts,” these are 3D characters that can customer to interact with a user. The hosts will be integrated with Amazon Polly and Lex to deliver natural language abilities, not unlike those present on the Alexa personal assistant.

Developers can build experiences for platforms like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Amazon will eventually add the ability to import data from unity projects as well. It’s also going to support the development of AR scenes for Android devices that are compatible with the ARCore platform.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: Amazon, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR)