Augmented Reality and Apple ARkit

[sheehan_partners_nm]

Keep us posted! Google fan boy here...

[joconnell]

I'm wondering about a depth sensing phone - Sony just released one with a 3d head avatar creating app and asus have their zenphone with a scanner built in. Maybe handy for small vfx set surveys...

[sheehan_partners_nm]

Google's ar core is here. And it seems to track better than arkit.
At least in our first tests.

Hi there mate,
Quick question for you... Do you know if there is any AR app out there were I can just upload my own 3d files? (fbx, 3ds...whatever).
I want to test the new AR kit but from what I saw online, you need to know how to code. Wondering if you know if there is smth ready on the store, or If I have to do it from scratch, is it smth that a beginner should try or too much trouble?
Thanks in advance!

[Ihno]

Hi, sorry for the late reply.
I don't know such app, but we made something similar for a client and it didn't work too well. The problem is; you can't simply inject a model in runtime. There are plugins for unity which do this. But they have big problems and are not quite user-friendly and pretty picky on what they accept and translate right.
And while you can build a material editor for editing materials in runtime you can't bake the lighting or the reflections. It's not easy (if even possible) to build a controllable system for such things. And the result will always look odd.
I don't know how it is on the unreal side but I guess you'd fight similar problems.
From the perspective of the engine dev's there is no reason for building the code needed to bake light and reflections into the app.
It would make the app much bigger and the calculation times for such things on a smartphone would be huge. I mean it would take days for more complex things.

BUT Unity is pretty easy to use and you don't need coding to build a simple AR app for android using vuforia. I.e a model on a marker which isn't interactive or something.
I think this would also be the case for AR core (using the example package) but I'm not sure.

[sheehan_partners_nm]

Hi, sorry for the late reply.
I don't know such app, but we made something similar for a client and it didn't work too well. The Problem is that you can't simply inject a model in runtime. There are plugins for unity, but they have big problems and are not quite user-friendly and pretty picky on what they accept and translate right.

BUT Unity is pretty easy to use and you don't need coding to build a simple AR app for android using vuforia. I.e a model on a marker which isn't interactive or something.
I think this would also be the case for AR core (using the example package) but I'm not sure.

Thanks for your reply. I thought it would be an easier task, with an app out there which reads a marker, and associates it with a random 3d model you upload.
But I see what you say. And thanks for mentioning Vuforia, looks interesting and not complicated. Will download Unity and give it a try for sure!

[sheehan_partners_nm]

Ihno , that Vuforia plugin was so easy to use....i did my first test and worked really well I have to say. Thanks for the advice

[samuel_bubat]

We used Junaio in the past. It was really easy to use and easy to deliver to clients. You would just export an object. Define an image as marker, and upload it to their cloud. the client had to install the junaio player from the playstore. Point his device to the pre defines image and the exported object would appear. The marker could be any image. We used the front cover realestate brochures as marker. Worked pretty well. Unfortunately it was bought by apple and the technology is now AR Kit.

I just made my first tests with google ARCore and Unreal Engine. The tracking is very stable. But tracking with marker has some advantages. For example you could turn a marker in front of your phone and the object would turn with it. Also the rotation of the object would be defined by the marker wich is not the case with markerless tracking. For those who are interested to give it a try with UE4 here is couple of links. If you follow these steps in this exact order it should work.

[Syclone1]

... here is couple of links. If you follow these steps in this exact order it should work.

Just a heads up that the links didnt come through...

[samuel_bubat]

Oh right, here they are. Basically follwing these steps should work.

https://developers.google.com/ar/dev...etting-started

But as this is a bit recursive Here are the steps in seperate links.

1. Make sure your device supports arcore. Unfortunately just two Models work for the moment.
https://developers.google.com/ar/dis...ported_devices

2. Install Unreal Engine 4.18.
No need to compile it yourself as described in the very first link.

3. Install adb
https://developer.android.com/studio...-line/adb.html

4. Enable developer options on your mobile and make sure it is recognized as described in the second link.
https://developer.android.com/studio...ns.html#enable
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest...d/2/index.html
I had to install these drivers for the S8 to be recognized correctly on my win7 workstation
http://developer.samsung.com/galaxy/...er-for-windows

5. Install ARCore services on your mobile ("prepare your device" section)
https://github.com/google-ar/arcore-...re-preview.apk
https://developers.google.com/ar/dev...etting-started

6. Install Visual Studio 2017 Community
https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/
During installation you?ll get a huge list of features to install. I didn?t find an exact explanation what needed to be installed so I seleceted everything that somehow seems to be connected to c++ and unreal engine.
Not sure if neccessary but after all it worked. Don?t worry you don?t need to code anything in VS. It just needs to be installed.

7. Install Nvidia Codeworks for Android as explained here
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest...d/1/index.html
during installation I got an error. Something like Tegra not supported with Visual studio 2017 or requires vs2015. Something like that.
You couldn?t just skip this error. But there was an option. Like clear or reset and after that you could go on with the installation.

8. Download and open sample project.
https://github.com/google-ar/arcore-...dk-preview.zip
It will ask you wich engine version to use when opened. Make sure it ?s 4.18.

9. Accept the license agreements as described here
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest...ted/index.html

10. configure your project as described here and package. ("Set up Android development settings" section)
precisely follow these steps !
https://developers.google.com/ar/dev...etting-started
Important ! Before you compile. In your project settings/Android Disable "Enable Gradle instead of Ant" or it won?t compile. Seems to be a bug for the moment

11. Once the project is succefully compiled. Execute the .bat file in the compile directory and you?ll find a working ARCore sample app on your mobile.

[sheehan_partners_nm]

I prefer markers as well. That way is possible to lock the virtual data exactly where it should go in the real space, and not in a arbitrary drag and drop position.
Is it possible to link multiple markers/ ARobjects, to the same AR app? So you just go in the site, scan markers attached to equipment, and information appears? Sound doable to me, but I know less than John Snow

[Ihno]

Jep Vuforia can do that.

[sheehan_partners_nm]

Jep Vuforia can do that.

Good to know. I will have to dig deeper in tutorials. The simple app i created for testing doesn't even have an user interface right now. I need to force close it every time I wanna exit.