I. Debut at WAIC – Where Tech Meets Tradition in a Spectacular Convergence

For the sixth year running, Sight+ has been the trusted spatial computing partner for the Metaverse pavilion at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC). At WAIC 2024, together with Rokid, Goertek, PICO, and other industry leaders, the company unveiled an immersive Metaverse experience hub featuring a diverse array of mixed-reality exhibits. Among them, the digital China-Chic journey co-created with Rokid stole the spotlight as a standout example of culture–technology fusion. Visitors donning AR glasses found themselves stepping straight into a Chinese ink-wash dreamscape – as if a classical scroll had unfurled around them – embarking on a journey across time that bridges ancient and modern with effortless grace. It was more than a demo; it was a tangible blueprint for bringing traditional culture into the digital age.

II. Inside the Experience – Wander into an Ink-Wash Dreamscape

2.1 Project Overview: When Ink Wash Meets Spatial AR

This digital China-Chic journey is a standout showcase of the powerful collaboration between Sight+’s EasyAR Mega platform and Rokid AR Studio hardware. The experience comprises multiple Chinese-style interactive segments, with the crown jewel being “Dragon’s Bow Shadow” – an immersive archery game set in a flowing ink-wash landscape. It also features classic Chinese animation IP from Shanghai Animation Film Studio, a vivid replay of the Hexi Corridor’s history, and a light show at Xi’an’s Wild Goose Pagoda. Unlike run‑of‑the‑mill digital exhibitions that merely loop videos or display static images, this project transplants the entire ink-wash aesthetic into the physical world. When wearing the Rokid AR Studio glasses, users see the real environment overlaid with three-dimensional ink paintings, as if they have literally “walked into a Chinese scroll” right where they stand.

Two core interactive modes await:

Dragon’s Bow Shadow: You are an ancient warrior, poised in a misty ink-wash mountainscape, drawing a virtual bow against a legendary dragon that bursts from the clouds. Every splash of ink, wisp of fog, and craggy peak materializes in 3D around you. Drawing, aiming, and releasing arrows are all driven by natural hand gestures – each shot leaves a trail of ink, accompanied by real-time haptic feedback and cinematic sound effects, delivering a pulse-pounding Chinese fantasy battle.

Classic IP Revival: The experience weaves in beloved characters from Shanghai Animation Film Studio’s golden era. You can relive the Monkey King wielding his golden staff, revisit Nezha’s legendary feats, or travel back to the Hexi Corridor to overlook the bustling Silk Road markets. These myths and historical episodes are no longer confined to flat screens – they unfold in three dimensions around you, creating a magical sense of “stepping into the scroll and meeting the ancients with a wave of your hand”.

2.2 Highlights – Beyond the Screen, Into the Scroll

Immersive Storytelling: Ditch the passive screen-watching. With AR glasses, you become an active participant in the narrative – stepping into ink-wash scenes, interacting with dragons and mythical heroes, and experiencing history firsthand.

Eastern Aesthetics in Full 3D: Exquisite scene design and gripping narratives produce stunning visuals that bring myths and historical tales to life right before your eyes.

Smart Interaction Anywhere: Thanks to gesture recognition, offline point‑cloud mapping, and offline voice technology, you can interact freely with the environment. The system runs offline too, ensuring smooth performance even in crowded exhibition halls or heritage sites with patchy networks.

III. Under the Hood: EasyAR Mega, the Spatial Computing Powerhouse

Sight+’s EasyAR Mega platform makes it possible to seamlessly anchor virtual ink‑wash scenery onto the physical environment. Characters, dragons, and effects stay rock-solid in real space, making the platform a technological backbone of the entire China-Chic AR journey.

3.1 VPS – Pinpoint Accuracy for Virtual-Real Alignment

Unlike GPS, EasyAR Mega uses Visual Positioning Service (VPS) to reconstruct the physical environment in 3D, delivering centimeter‑level precision and sub‑second response. Even in bustling exhibition halls with dozens of simultaneous users, the virtual ink mountains, the dragon, and your bow stay locked to the real space without drifting or jitter. Its spatial awareness also enables realistic occlusion – virtual mist and cliffs can be hidden behind real podiums or walls – dramatically enhancing the sense of immersion and making the ink‑wash world feel as if it has “unfolded right on the spot”.

3.2 Edge-Cloud Collaboration & Offline Support – Built for Any Venue

The platform supports Mega‑Go offline positioning on the device side, so the experience doesn’t rely on a continuous cloud connection. Even when venue networks are overloaded, AR interactions and mythological renderings run without a hitch – perfect for exhibitions, museums, and tourist attractions where connectivity is unpredictable. Moreover, it works with consumer‑grade capture tools like panoramic cameras, eliminating the need for expensive laser scanners and significantly cutting the cost of deploying China-Chic AR content.

3.3 A Complete Toolchain – Supercharging the Digitalization of Cultural IP

EasyAR Mega offers a full pipeline – from spatial capture and content editing to scene testing and live operations. Creators can swiftly transform traditional paintings, mythological IP, and intangible cultural heritage into spatial AR content, without wrestling with underlying positioning challenges. The platform is cross‑device compatible – beyond Rokid AR glasses, it supports MR headsets, mini‑apps, and smartphones. The same China-Chic content can be redeployed in scenic spots, museums, or commercial galleries with minimal effort, enabling reuse across scenarios and accelerating the digital transformation of cultural IP.

3.4 An Open Ecosystem – Fostering Cross‑Sector Collaboration in Culture and Tech

EasyAR Mega boasts over 200,000 developers worldwide, 40% of them from overseas. Its open APIs and tools empower cultural creative firms, museums, and content studios to rapidly build China-Chic spatial AR projects. Beyond this WAIC showcase, the technology has already powered the Yu Garden Lantern Festival AR experience, the Forbidden City AR tour, and numerous museum digital exhibitions – all testaments to the viability of spatial computing in cultural heritage, paving the way for more Chinese cultural IP to go digital.

IV. A New Frontier: Unlocking New Pathways for Cultural Engagement

1. From “Watching” to “Living” Culture

Traditional Chinese culture exhibitions often rely on panels and screens. This AR China-Chic experience, however, lets you step directly into ink‑wash mythscapes and interact with them, making the aesthetic and stories more accessible, especially for younger audiences. It truly brings traditional culture to life.

2. Fresh Business Models for Cultural Tourism

This project can travel beyond trade shows to museums, historic sites, and cultural districts. With minimal hardware upgrades – just AR glasses and EasyAR Mega spatial maps – you can overlay mythological narratives and ink‑wash scenes onto actual ancient architecture and gardens, offering low‑cost, highly immersive cultural tourism experiences and creating new revenue streams for the heritage and travel industry.

3. Lowering the Bar for China-Chic IP Digitalization

With the platform’s mature mapping, positioning, and editing tools, cultural creators can turn traditional paintings, myths, and intangible cultural heritage into spatial AR content without deep algorithm expertise, driving virtual‑real innovation for more Chinese cultural IP.

V. Looking Ahead: Spatial Computing as the “New Canvas” for Traditional Culture

The China-Chic digital experience at WAIC is just one early brushstroke in a much larger picture. As AR hardware becomes lighter and more affordable, and as EasyAR Mega continues to evolve with city‑scale mapping, offline interaction, and multi‑user synchronisation, the rich tapestry of Chinese culture – ink art, myths, intangible cultural heritage, and opera – will no longer be confined to scrolls, books, or exhibition halls.

In the near future, visitors strolling through gardens, ancient towns, and museums will put on lightweight AR glasses and encounter ink‑wash landscapes, interact with historical figures in real time, and share those moments with friends. Sight+ will continue to join forces with hardware makers and cultural creative partners, using spatial computing to uncover more China-Chic cultural IP and build more deployable AR experiences. By blending the virtual and the real, the company aims to tell China’s stories in a fresh, vivid way, bringing traditional culture out of the display case and into everyday life.