As both ARCore and ARKit have support tracking 2D image targets (such as posters on the wall), I suppose ARFoundation will support this as well. The feature is not supported in the initial ARFoundation preview version, but according to Mike Durand (in the closed beta group, which is not so active anymore…) “functionality will be expressed via subsystem that will ship post Unity 2018.3.”
Now, as “post 2018.3” might be almost a year away from now (which is an eternity in the XR technology world), my question is: is using ARKit/Core SDK:s directly for the image targets in parallel with ARFoundation fully supported and possible?
We’re designing a multi-platform 2D image tracking system now and the tentative plan is to release it as a package in the coming months. However, it will only work with 2018.3 and later. Sorry if my “post 2018.3” quote was too ambiguous.
Is it outside of the ARKit and ARCore implementations or is it some bridging of the two so that trackable images for both android and ios can be managed with one top level control?
The idea for ARFoundation in general is to provide a multi-platform layer so that you only have to write once and it will run everywhere. So the intent is for all the subsystems including the Image Tracking one to have multi-platform support. In this case, we want to use the underlying ARKit and ARCore implementations to provide the data for the subsystem.
But there could be a 3rd party who decides they can do image tracking better than these SDKs, and they are more than welcome to use the Image Tracking subsystem to deliver their data in a multi-platform manner.
@jimmya and @mdurand Thanks for the answers. How about the question in the original post: is using ARKit/Core SDK:s directly for the image targets in parallel with ARFoundation fully supported and possible?
I would assume nothing is keeping from using any tech alongside ARFoundation, but I am just a bit worried if they might somehow “clash”…like when ARFoundation and ARKit/Core are all required to use the camera image simultaneously etc. Is there anything that would expose the underlying ARKit/Core in the ARFoundation API?
Am looking into how I can take and use the image tracking element of arkit in the ARFoundation as a hacky workaround for now, has anyone done this yet?
I’m curious about this as well. Is cross-platform image tracking really a year out? Would using native ARKit/ARcore image tracking in unity break AR Foundation?
Is there any update on when this might be ready? I have a very limited amount of time and need this functionality. I’d rather use your solution but may have to go the Vuforia route if it’s still months away.
We plan to have full ARKit 2.0 and ARCore 1.3 support by the end of this year (not a year from now), which will include 2D image tracking.
It’s not currently possible because they would indeed clash (there can only be a single ARSession at a time). We’re actively working on image tracking support. We’ll let you know when it’s ready.
ARFoundation new features are released in new version of the ARFoundation packages, not in Unity version releases. They are also released at a faster cadence than Unity releases.
No, it is not possible to have Vuforia and ARFoundation in the same project. If you do, you get a weird error about conflicting AndroidManigest.xml files when trying to build. I think the fact that you cannot use both should be indicated a lot more clearly in Unity.
@jimmya Is there an estimate on when the image targets would be available via ARFoundation?
Thanks for this interesting thread. I personally think that AR Foundation (which is a great approach) should allow the low-level use APIs of AR Kit and AR Core, if needed. Otherwise, there will always be a huge time delay. And the AR world is moving fast. Very fast.
(I would also love to see support for Vuforia, but I can understand that this is a way heavier task to achieve.)