[IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: hero — a hand holding a physical CRCT or Tử Vi card up to a phone camera, the phone screen mid-scan with a gold glow around the card]

Most "scan the card" features in card apps are a trick. There's a barcode or a QR code hidding on the card, and the phone reads that, not the art.

Orim's AR scanner reads the card itself. Hold up a Heirs of the Dragon & Fairy card or a Purple Star oracle card, and the camera recognizes the actual printed illustration and name. Nothing hidden, nothing added to the print.

This is a deck-owner feature: buying a physical Orim deck unlocks it permanently for that deck's cards. It lives at /ar on orim.co, and it works right in a phone browser.

What scanning a card looks like

The frame on screen holds a resting, ink-and-mist palette while it waits for a clear view of the card.

[IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: the resting scan frame, jade/bone/ink colors, a card partially inside the guide frame]

As it starts to recognize the card, the frame warms. Embers rise, and a ring modeled on an ancient Đông Sơn bronze drum spins faster the closer the match gets.

[IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: mid-convergence — embers rising, the bronze drum ring spinning, gold bleeding into the frame]

Once the match is confirmed, the frame floods gold, a chime plays, and the card ignites into its own video — full-screen, looping, playing on the exact card you're holding.

[IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: the ignition moment — gold flash transitioning into the card's video]

The first scan in a session plays the full two-second version of this. Every scan after that plays a fast half-second version, since the app assumes you already know what's coming.

Two ways to open a scanned card

Every card can be scanned into one of two modes:

Watch the card's video. The card's own short animated clip plays full-screen, with its name and a line of its meaning layered over it.

[IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: a card's video mid-play, name and hook line overlaid at the bottom of the screen]

Read the card's full meaning. This skips the video and goes straight to the card's written page — its story, its keywords, its place in a reading.

[IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: a card's full meaning page, opened directly from a scan]

Two decks, two different recognition methods, one experience

This is the part worth knowing if you're curious how it actually works: the two decks are recognized in completely different ways.

Heirs of the Dragon & Fairy cards print their names on the card face, so the scanner reads that text, entirely on your phone, with no internet connection needed. To avoid a false match on a shaky read, it requires the same card to win four scans in a row before it commits.

The Purple Star deck's cards are recognized by their actual photographed artwork instead of text. The first time a given card is scanned, the app may check with a cloud recognition service to confirm it; after that first confirmed match, it remembers the card locally, so every future scan of that same card is instant and needs no network call at all.

Two different recognition engines, one identical scanning ritual on screen. You never have to know which one is running under a given card — it just works.

Why this only works for deck owners

Scanning is the reward for owning the physical deck: buy the cards, and every card in your hand becomes a way to unlock its video and its full meaning page, permanently, for that card, without a subscription. It's the thing that makes the printed deck more than a printed deck — the paper you're holding is the actual key.

[IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: closing shot — a full deck fanned across a table, a phone hovering above one card mid-scan]

Shot list:

Hero: hand + card + phone screen mid-scan
Resting scan frame (calm state)
Convergence: embers + spinning bronze ring
Ignition flash → video transition
A card's video playing with overlay text
A card's written meaning page
Closing: full deck fanned on a table, phone scanning one card