Gallery: An App That Turns Your Instagrams Into Sci-Fi Landscapes

  • Image may contain Wood Sand Outdoors Nature and Triangle
    Illustration: Matter
    01

    Matter 2

    With Matter, otherwise run-of-the-mill landscapes and cityscapes become a cross between Tatooine and a Pink Floyd album cover.
  • Image may contain Architecture Building Human Person Arched Arch Banister and Handrail
    Illustration: @v14zco
    02

    @v14zco

    Matter is the latest in a suite of apps from Pixite, a digital studio that makes iOS apps with artists in mind.
  • Image may contain Triangle
    Illustration: @maysgrafx
    03

    @maysgrafx

    Users can upload any photo in Matter, and then add 3-D objects to the image.
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    Illustration: @rmdcb
    04

    @rmdcb

    When Pixite built Matter (from scratch, in OpenGL) they took pains to make sure users could rotate, zoom to scale, and blend each object in one place.
  • Image may contain Furniture Bench Grass Plant and Toy
    Illustration: Matter
    05

    Matter 5

    Users can also tinker with the objects' shadows to sync with the direction of sunlight.
  • Image may contain Machine
    Illustration: Matter
    06

    Matter 6

    Plus, they built a plane into the editing frame that estimates the distance between the camera, the ground, and the vanishing point. If a user moves an object past that plane, the object will intuitively start to disappear underground, as if it’s half-buried.
  • Image may contain Human Person Architecture Building and Window
    Illustration: @postaljeff
    07

    @postaljeff

    Matter also lets users export images at GIFs.
  • Apps like Matter are opening stuff up for people who dont have laptops or software or Photoshop. They can do this from...
    Illustration: Matter
    08

    Matter 4

    Apps like Matter are "opening stuff up for people who don’t have laptops or software or Photoshop. They can do this from the phone in their pocket,” says Ben Guerrette, Pixite's creative director.
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