Building Spatial Navigation with Snap’s Spectacles
This project was part of DESIGN 284: XR for Extended Realities, a Stanford course focused on exploring the potential of immersive technologies to solve real-world problems. For our final project, my team and I created an augmented reality navigation experience using Snap’s Spectacles. Spectacles are Snap’s AR smart glasses that allow users to view digital overlays in the physical world through an embedded display and camera system. Our goal was to reimagine how people navigate unfamiliar environments, especially places like a university campus, by projecting directional guidance directly into the user’s field of vision.
My personal contribution to the project focused on the technical foundation for placing navigation arrows in 3D space. I implemented the core systems for surface detection and route visualization, which allowed us to anchor arrows to the ground plane and adjust them in real time based on the user’s movement. I developed the logic that translated GPS route data into relative vectors and then dynamically spawned arrows at regular intervals using Snap’s prefab system. These arrows not only pointed in the correct direction but also responded to the terrain and user position, creating a fluid and intuitive navigation experience.
We used Snap Lens Studio as our primary development tool, taking advantage of its scripting capabilities, prefab instantiation, and world mesh querying tools. What excites me most about this project is how it bridges the gap between digital navigation and real-world awareness. Instead of pulling out a phone and checking a map, users can simply follow a visual path that exists within their surroundings. As AR wearables become more mainstream, experiences like this will become increasingly valuable for tourists, students, event goers, and anyone looking to navigate unfamiliar areas more naturally. I believe this kind of spatial computing will play a big role in how we interact with the environments around us.
Check out the code at https://github.com/stong88/design-284-project