Once I graduated as a Master of Game Design I started looking for a job as a programmer. After searching around I came across Mimesys, a tiny start-up located in both Paris France and Hasselt Belgium.

It’s always a bit hard to explain to people what we created without having them try out the app inside a VR or AR device. Essentialy what Mimesys did was capture you using 3D cameras. Our amazing capture software constructed a realtime 3D model out of the camera data so that that could then be sent across the world. Imagine putting on a VR or AR headset and suddenly seeing someone sitting in front of you across the table.

On the left, what it would look like using Mimesys inside VR or AR. Right, me being captured inside our 3D capture and reconstruction software.

I was the development lead on the client-facing side of the application. I created most of the buttons, tools and UX that users interacted with. In my first months at the company I created a lot of interactions and systems for specific projects we did for other companies. While we were demoing our latest project at Vivatech 2019 in Paris we announced that Mimesys would be acquired bij Magic Leap, an american company and the creators of the worlds best AR glasses. After that I started working on converting the Mimesys projects into a fully fledged application for the Magic Leap One.

On the left, a project we did for BNP Paribas where you could place and manipulate a 3D map. Middle, a project we did for Orange showing off their new products. Right, the keynote at Vivatech 2019 with me as a hologram in the video.

Sadly I don’t get to show you a finished version of the Magic Leap One application that I developed with the team. Due to the rise of Covid 19 in 2020 around half of the workforce at Magic Leap was layed off and I got caught in the crossfire. While a lot of the systems I created probably still live on in other projects at Magic Leap, the application we were building was dropped.

Some years later I can only look back on my first job being infinitely gratefull to my then bosses Davy Loots and Remi Rousseau. They gave me, a fresh-out-of-school rookie, a chance to be the lead unity developer on an amazing project. I got to work closely with a 4-man dream-team of Masters of Computer Science and Mathematics. And yes, their knowledge did rub-off on me!