We designed Lightform Creator around a simple workflow for creating amazing projected AR content.

While designing Lightform Creator, we drew inspiration from best practices used in software like Adobe Suite and Interface Design to bring familiarity to a new medium of projected augmented reality motion content.

At the center of the user interface (UI) is an interactive view into the canvas where an artboard is drawn and all of the content is created. The toolbar at the top dynamically reveals all of the content creation and editing tools. The layers panel on the left displays all objects in a rearrangeable list. The property panel on the right dynamically reveals all editable parameters. The slides panel at the bottom contains all your compositions, known as slides.

Toolbar

The toolbar dynamically changes to reveal the allowed operations at any given time.

If you would like to return to the default mode (i.e., switch away from a particular masking tool you've selected) press esc.

Read more about editing modes, masking tools, and content creation.  

Artboard

All content is created inside of the artboard and its size is determined by the resolution of the projector during the scan. You can zoom in or out of the artboard by pressing CMD+Scroll or if using a trackpad, pinch, and pannable spacebar workspace. 

You can place content outside of the artboard but any part of the content not inside the artboard will not be visible when published.

Layers Panel

The layers panel consists of surfaces. Each surface can contain its own group of assets: effects, generators, videos, or images.

Layers can be selected, reordered (by clicking and dragging), renamed (by double-clicking), locked, hidden, and enabled/disabled for audio reactivity.

When a layer is selected in the Layers Panel or the Artboard, all of its properties are revealed in the Property Panel.

Layers Panel & Artboard Context Menu

Additional functionality can be found within the context menu. This menu can be displayed by right-clicking or two-finger clicking (on macOS) on a surface, content item, or a selection of one or more objects.

• Merge Surfaces
  • Merges the selected surfaces into a single surface.
  • Recommendations: Give your surfaces a meaningful name before performing a merge. This makes it easier to tell the paths apart in the surface properties panel. For example, in this screenshot, a surface named "circle" and a surface named "square" were merged. Note that the paths have the old surface's name as a prefix, making it easy to determine what the paths represent:
    
• Split Surfaces
  • Splits the paths within the surface into their own individual surfaces.
  • Requirements: Each selected surface must have 2 or more paths.
• Move to Front/Back/Forward/Backward: Adjusts the layer ordering of the selected surface or content.
• Duplicate: Duplicates the surface or content.
• Duplicate to Next Slide: Duplicates the content to the same surface in the next slide.
  • Requirements: Only operates on content. Will be disabled if there is no next slide.
• Duplicate to Previous Slide: Duplicates the content to the same surface in the previous slide.
  • Requirements: Only operates on content. Will be disabled if there is no previous slide.
• Duplicate to All Slides: Duplicates the content to the same surface in all slides.
  • Requirements: Only operates on content. 
• Lock/Unlock: Locks/unlocks the surface for editing.
  • Requirements: Only operates on surfaces. 
• Toggle Audio Reactivity: Enables/disables audio reactivity for the surface. This allows for per-surface and per-slide control of audio reactivity.
  • Requirements: Only operates on surfaces.
• Show/Hide: Shows/hides the surface for editing.
  • Requirements: Only operates on surfaces.
• Delete: Deletes the selected items.

Scan Properties

The scan acts as a powerful background layer for masking and creating instant effects. The Scan properties give the option to take a new scan or adjust opacity, brightness, and hole filling in the existing scan. It can be accessed by clicking Edit > Scan Properties or by de-selecting all active layers by clicking in an empty area on the artboard.

Property Panel

The Property Panel can inspect and modify parameters for any selected object(s). This includes Surfaces, Scans, Assets, and Slides. The Property Panel changes dynamically based on the selection. 

Slides Panel

The Slides Panel is a horizontal view of Slides. Slides can be duplicated, deleted, reordered, and renamed.

By creating a new slide, you are able to use the same Surfaces with entirely new content. The length of a slide can be adjusted in the Slide Properties as well as options to loop, hide, and fade the slide.

Slides Panel Context Menu

Additional functionality can be found within the context menu. This menu can be displayed by right-clicking or two-finger clicking (on macOS) on a slide.

• Duplicate: Creates a new slide and duplicates all of the content (images, videos, effects, etc.) in the slide. 
• Delete: Deletes the slide.
• Toggle Publishing: Toggles the publishable state of the slide. If a slide is disabled for publishing, it will be skipped when publishing all the slides during a normal publish process.
• Publish: Publishes ONLY this one slide to the device. This completely replaces all content on the device.

Asset Browser

The Asset Browser is a library of built-in, user-imported, and stock content. Users can import custom images and videos into the Media Browser by dragging files directly into Lightform Creator. Read more about adding content.