Augmented Reality

News & General Discussion
1

This question must have been asked before but I wish you don’t mind if I ask again…

Is there any way to create Augemented Reality applications/games with Unity?

Thanks in advance!!

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Interesting subject. I’m a big fan of augmented reality. Could you elaborate a bit more on what you are wanting to do tho. Are you wanting to do something with the iphone camera? Are you wanting to use fiduciary markers? Or do you want to use some sort of edge detection system like SLAM? I don’t really know how feasible any of these are, but I think it could be worthwild to explore it in more detail.

Edit:
Check out this link for some more info on SLAM.

3

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=20226

:))

Wim

4

Thank wimwouters for the url.

Lallander, we developed a simple web based AR program using Flash/FLARToolKit and it worked, but not great as Flash doesn’t handle 3D well (that’s why we switched to Unity, right?)

I am fine to forget about web based as I understand that it may not be possible for Unity to use any device like web cam at the moment and in the nearest future, (at least for PC) but what about Executable?

I saw some iphone AR demo, it is a bit slow so we are not thinking about it.

I will do more research and share information with you

5

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=17868

Yes, it should be possible to create AR apps in Unity, using OpenCV ( and other stuff possibly ).

6

Please check:
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=43090&sid=d52ec0c89f00dc4336c09bfaedb90291
[ ]'s

7

Any cool examples of AR in video, film or interactive art?
I made a short film that you can see here, and am interested in seeing AR in media more and more!

8

This is one of my favorites:

At work I’ve made a few AR apps for events where the target is 8’x10’ high and the 3d models are life size. Some t-shirts as well for promotional events/marketing.

Recently started using Metaio at work instead of vuforia, but it costs $8500 for the pro version…but it has a unity plugin and the most features of any of the AR libraries.

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9

Overlaying stuff on camera footage is trivial, anyone with basic Unity knowledge can do that.
Trick is if you want to make true/interactive AR game you need to do 3D motion tracking and as far as i know it’s quite computationally intensive.
There is hope if this becomes a thing https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/#project

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Can you perhaps elaborate a little bit on why you switched to metaio? We are using vuforia in most of our projects but want to try out metaio in the future. How does metaio hold up performance and stability wise?

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There’s this too: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/realsense-3d-camera.html

Not to mention MagicLeap, but that’s a long way off I’d imagine.

12

This developer profile from Unity’s YouTube Channel shows off some augmented reality work in Unity.

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Vuforia is as good with tracking image targets, but metaio has 2d and 3d slam tracking, the closest thing vuforia has is the user defined target. (their new terrain feature is too buggy for prime time)

Metaio works outdoors on buildings 100’+ away. This is the only feature we need metaio for, otherwise we use vuforia.

Metaio has a feature where you can adjust the sensitivity of tracking targets, but it gives a lot of false positives, but for some uses it’s useful.

I did see a whitepaper from a school where they used vuforia and wrote a custom gps/compass system that could augment buildings on the camera feed, so it is possible.

For body skeletal tracking with just an rgb webcam, there’s a company with a plugin for Unity http://www.xtr3d.com/

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14

Hey, don’t know if it helps, but i’ve found a simple guide on creating basic things with Unity and Vuforia.

15

I did not see this mentioned yet in this thread but at Unite ‘16 in Los Angeles Unity announced a collaboration with PTC to Integrate the Vuforia Augmented Reality platform within Unity. So going forward it might get a lot easier to start playing around with Mixed Reality. I personally wish Unity would consider working with a more developer friendly party. Vuforia is just not that great in terms of AR tracking options and in terms of service and Vuforia sells ridiculously expensive licenses for their technology. For example publishing a simple augmentation on a 2D image target on Windows 10 will right now cost you at least 2500$ with Vuforia’s SDK ( that’s the consumer pro license that enables UWP support ). While the same functionality is free with EasyAR and almost free with Arcolib!

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16

I have written a blog which gives a good basic overview about using Unity, Vuforia and Blender to create a 3D animated AR experience. Hopefully this helps others in scoping and resourcing a project.

http://interactions.history.sa.gov.au/2016/07/augmented-reality

There is also another blog which highlights the challenges and limitations of using a large 3D object (a car in this case), as a target :

http://interactions.history.sa.gov.au/2017/05/bush-mechanics-ar-survival-kit

The 2D and 3D slam tracking that Metaio offered looks pretty awesome, however I wonder what is happening now since they were acquired by Apple. It would be great if this functionality were available in other AR libraries - does anyone know?

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I guess they are going to eventually integrate it into ar kit?

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Majority of this thread predates Unite '16. Surprised people are reviving this thread instead of just making a new one since I have to imagine most of this thread is seriously way out of date now. Original post was from 2009.

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19

Hi, everyone! I am helping my friend with his research. He is researching the potential of VR and AR in different fields. What would be your personal opinion where AR can play a vital role in the future? For instance, real estate, video games, health care etc.

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AR will play a vital rol in all of the above. Augmented Reality ( the world as your computer interface ) is the new reality in every aspect of your life. Screens are disappearing. All your entertainment needs but also all your information needs will taken care of when you need it and where you need through intelligent personalised AR interfaces. No longer through screens but much much closer to your experience of reality. For a brief moment in time we’ll be wearing special glasses to consume AR but just a short time later the glasses will be redundant as the information will be put into our brains more directly. AR will be the default medium for every type of interaction with the world. All other forms of interfacing with computers and each other will soon be ancient silliness. Just my humble opinion.

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