Snapchat Lens Fest 2022: Meet the two Indian developers who won the award for advanced AR experiences – Times of India

The use cases of Augmented Reality (AR), the integration of interactive real world experience with computer-generated virtual content, are on a rise. While companies like Facebook-parent Meta, Apple and Sony are now investing heavily in this space, AR has been around for some time now. Snapchat’s AR lenses are often attributed to have paved the way for consumer engagement and India is not far behind. The fact that two AR creators from the country have been named as Lens Fest Award winners attests to that growing trend.
Vishal Yadav from Bangalore and Wasim Ghole from Mumbai competed with hundreds of other participants globally to win the Lens Fest Award for most creative and innovative lenses. Snap’s panel of experts reviewed hundreds of entries across five categories: Fashion, Play, Education, Wellness, and Moonshot.
Vishal Yadav developed the Flux Fashion Lens which captures colours from users’ surroundings to create an outfit.
“Being a part of Lens Fest makes me feel recognised in the community and allows me to experience firsthand how other creators like me are enhancing people’s realities on the back of AR,” said Yadav, a student from the National Institute of Design. He has been creating lenses for Snapchat for two years.
How does Snapchat’s Flux Fashion lens work?
The Flux Fashion lens allows users to tap and hold a colour which brings in the eyedropper tool allowing them to choose any colour from the surrounding. Once a custom choice of colours have been picked, the camera can be pointed at someone, who can then try-on this dress.
“The dress is made of flowing particles that interact and bounce off the ground and create a trail wherever the person wearing the dress goes,” Yadav explains.
Wasim Ghole developed the Soft Drink Info Lens which brings up information about the drink you are consuming.
“My lens Soft Drink Info helps users to have a track of the nutritional facts in some of the popular soft drinks in the market. As health and fitness are some of the most important aspects of our life, I wanted to create something that will educate them about the soft drinks they consume in their daily life,” Ghole added.

How does Snapchat’s Soft Drink Info lens work?
When pointed at a drink, for example, at a can of Coca Cola, the Soft Drink Info lens makes the user aware of the nutritional count in the soft drink. Additionally, it also calculates the duration of different physical activities or exercises like running, cycling and cleaning, one can engage in to burn those calories,” said Wasim.
Snapchat-parent Snap said that the company’s Indian AR creator community grew by 60% in 2022. It also provided a global perspective saying that 363 million people use Snapchat camera technology every day. It claimed that Snapchatters engage with AR experiences an average of 6 billion times per day, evolving the way we use computing in our daily lives.
“AR creators, developers, and partners are tapping into our community’s engagement and excitement about augmented reality today and its vast potential for the future. Today we announced that there are over 300,000 creators, developers and teams from around the world who’ve built more than 3 million AR Lenses,” Snap said in a statement.
Building businesses with Snap AR
Snap also announced that a lot of creators are building strong businesses on the Snap AR platform. For example, Pradeepa Anandhi created a custom landmarker lens for Havmor ice-cream brand, and five lens creators developed Diwali 2022-centric lenses.