{"id":555663,"date":"2025-11-07T19:03:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T19:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/555663\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T19:03:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T19:03:19","slug":"former-magic-leap-engineers-launch-no-code-ar-creation-platform-aiming-to-be-canva-of-ar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/555663\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Magic Leap Engineers Launch No-code AR Creation Platform, Aiming to Be ‘Canva of AR’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trace<\/a>, a startup founded by former Magic Leap engineers, today announced the launch of a new augmented reality creation platform the company hopes will become the \u201cCanva of AR\u201d.<\/p>\n

The News<\/p>\n

Trace says it\u2019s targeting everyone from global brands to independent creators wanting to build location-based immersive AR content,\u00a0according to a recent press statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Notably, the platform doesn\u2019t require coding or advanced design expertise, allowing users to\u00a0design, drop, and share interactive AR experiences across mobile devices, headsets, and AR glasses.<\/p>\n

To boot, Trace says it\u2019s launching the platform at a pivotal moment;\u00a0Adobe has officially discontinued its Aero AR platform<\/a>, and Meta\u2019s Spark AR<\/a> platform was retired in January 2025. To seize the moment, Trace is offering three free months of its premium plan to Aero and Spark users who migrate to its platform.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cEven as XR devices become more capable, the creator ecosystem is still really limited,\u201d said Martin Smith, Trace\u2019s CTO and co-founder. \u201cEmpowering creators to build and share their vision is such an important part of the picture, whether they\u2019re an educator, an artist, or a Fortune 500 brand. Trace runs anywhere, scales instantly, and supports the fidelity AR deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Founded in 2021, Trace has already worked with a host of early enterprise adopters, including ESPN, T-Mobile, Qualcomm, Telef\u00f3nica, Lenovo, and Deutsche Telekom, who have used Trace for marketing, visualization, employee training, and trade show installations at Mobile World Congress and the Hip Hop 50 Summit.<\/p>\n

Trace\u2019s creation platform is available to download for free on iPhone and iPad through the App Store<\/a>, with an optional premium subscription available starting at $20 per month. Creations can currently be viewed through the Trace Viewer app available for free on the App Store and Google Play<\/a>, and users can import their existing 3D assets in the Web Studio, available at studio.trace3d.app<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My Take<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason Meta and Adobe haven\u2019t put a massive amount of effort into their respective AR creation platforms lately: all-day AR glasses are still relatively far away, as the usual cadre of XR headset and glasses creators are only now stepping into smart glasses ahead of what could be a multi-year leadup to all-day AR glasses of the future.<\/p>\n

Still, enterprise-level AR activations on mobile and mixed reality headsets, like Apple Vision Pro and Quest 3, can turn more than a few heads, making a quick and easy no-code solution ideal for companies and independent creators looking for a selective reach.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Quest 3 (left) and Apple Vision Pro (right) | Based on images courtesy Meta, Apple<\/p>\n

I would consider Trace\u2019s strategy of offering former Adobe\u00a0Aero AR and\u00a0Meta Spark AR a pretty shrewd move to get some market share out of the gate too, which is increasingly important since it\u2019s the company\u2019s sole occupation\u2014and not a side project like it was for Adobe and Meta.<\/p>\n

The more challenging test will be to see how Trace grows in that interminable leadup to wide-spread AR glasses though, and how it weathers the competition sure to come from platform holders looking to offer similarly easy-to-use AR creations suites of the future.<\/p>\n

While the platform\u2019s wide target and ease of use are big pluses, I can see it more squarely fitting in the enterprise space than something regular consumers might latch onto\u2014which is probably the ideal fit for a company founded by Magic Leap alumni, who have undoubtedly learned a sharp lesson first hand. Magic Leap\u2019s early flirtations with prosumers in 2018 with the launch of Magic Leap One eventually\u00a0forced the company to pivot to enterprise<\/a> two years later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trace, a startup founded by former Magic Leap engineers, today announced the launch of a new augmented reality…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3162],"tags":[53,16,15,3243,3244],"class_list":{"0":"post-555663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-technology","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-virtual-reality","12":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115509972975788758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}