Augmented reality app illustrates damage to smokers’ lungs

SapientNitro have created “AR Lungs,” an augmented reality app that displays the harm that can be done by smoking.

For smokers, it’s one thing to be told that cigarettes are damaging to the lungs; it’s quite another, however, to see a visual depiction of that destruction. Enter London marketing firm SapientNitro, which recently created “AR Lungs,” an augmented reality app that displays the harm that can be done by smoking. To see AR Lungs in action, smokers need a computer webcam or smartphone camera. First, they download and print the augmented reality (AR) “tag” from the app’s website. Next, they visit the main site and hold the AR tag in front of their chest while facing the camera to superimpose digital lungs over their own image. Using on-screen sliders, they also input the number of years they have smoked and the number of cigarettes smoked per day. Whereas a nonsmoker will see healthy, pink lungs, someone who has smoked 15 cigarettes a day for 17 years, for example, would see a visual representation of the damage and discoloration their smoking has caused. SapientNitro consulted medical experts to establish and depict the degree of visual lung damage, it says. Augmented reality has appeared numerous times on our virtual pages already, but never for health-related purposes such as this. Further possibilities abound! Spotted by: Katharina Kieck