TikTok routinely introduces new filters, allowing its users to transform faces and add fun effects to videos. And the last addition takes advantage of one of the marquee features introduced with the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max last autumn.
TikTok added an augmented reality filter. And if you have one of the iPhone 12 Pro models, you can use the LiDAR sensor on the back of the phone to add augmented reality effects to your clip. In this specific case, TikTok presents a fun New Year’s Eve ball drop effect that can appear in clips shot with an iPhone 12 Pro.
This seems to make this late New Year’s celebration a much more lonely party when you realize that only a segment of smartphone users will be able to use it. TikTok, one of the most popular video platforms in the world, tweeted that this filter is your first AR effect using LiDAR technology. Presumably, it won’t be the last.
The effects of AR, of course, are not new to social media apps like TikTok, but LiDAR – or “light detection and reach” – takes things to a whole new level.
LiDAR detects the presence of real-world objects by emitting waves that reflect on physical things and returning to the sensor for accurate and detailed measurements. This allows LiDAR-based AR effects to interact with the world around them. In the new TikTok filter, for example, a mass of glitter spreads throughout the room, covering objects.
In the case of the iPhone 12 Pro, the LiDAR depth sensor is used for more than just improving filters and offering fun effects. It also helps to make night portrait mode work better, as well as aiding the camera’s ability to focus. And it should benefit from other applications that add support for LiDAR.
TikTok is not the first platform to receive filters using LiDAR technology. Snapchat first added support filters in October, and creators can build their own filters there. It remains to be seen whether these effects will eventually reach an Android device, or whether Android phone manufacturers adopt their own LiDAR sensors, such as DigiTimes forecast a month ago.