Snapchat quietly acquired Seene, a 3D imaging app

Snapchat, a photo sharing app of giant proportions, has quietly purchased another app that lets users post 3D images that are generated with a standard smartphone’s camera. Seene, the name of the app, is much structured like Instagram where users can post a feed of their own 3D images created within the app.

According to TechCrunch, the purchase was said to have happened about two months ago.

This is one of those apps that are pretty cool, but easily forgotten about if the technology is not applied on a larger scale. Here is where Snapchat comes in. It must be really interested in the engineering and technology that goes behind the 3D imaging app.

The video below shows how the app can scan a person’s face into a 3D model by carefully tracking points that have been assigned to parts of the subject’s face. This isn’t the same technology as Project Tango or Intel’s RealSense technology which use infrared sensors to build a cloud map.

Snapchat is always looking for new ways to amuse its users. The past year or so they’ve been really pushing these new 3D filters with makeup, other people’s faces, and of course, perhaps one of the most popular, the doggie filter.

Snapchat could potentially use Seene’s technology to make new snapchat filters, perhaps even some kind of new snapchat viewer which can record images in 3D that users can view while tilting and shifting their phones around. Much like the iPhone’s dynamic wallpapers, but more sensitive.

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