ARCore vs AR Foundation

I am a beginner with ARCore, confused because I also found this AR Foundation.
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.xr.arfoundation@1.0/manual/index.html

Do I need this or is ARCore (good) enough?

Thanks!

Freddy

 

Think I found it already, forget ARCore, just use AR Foundation with the ARCore or ARKit plugin! Same code for both! Wow!

Am I right? Hope so!

Freddy

 

Hi Freddy,

Yes, that's right. ARFoundation talks to multi-platform APIs in Unity and doesn't need to know whether it is communicating with ARCore or ARKit. This lets you write the same code regardless of which platform you are targeting.

-Tim

 

Hi Tim,

Is AR Foundation considered deployment ready, or is it still in development? I want to release a prototype of my application in January and I'm wondering if AR Foundation is going to be consistently reliable and market ready by then.

Thanks for any info you can provide,

Aidan

 

It is still in "preview" since we are still missing some features that ARKit and ARCore provide (e.g., image tracking, object tracking, environment probes & cloud anchors). If those are necessary for your app, then you might need a different solution for an app you plan to develop in the next couple of months.

 

Thanks Tim, this is really helpful.
Is there a GitHub I can follow progress?

 

We have a samples repo on GitHub, which is usually updated when a new release is available. We also add a sample for each new feature. I also usually make an announcement on this forum when we publish a new release.

 

Hi Tim, I am a beginner and last week I tweaked the sample scene, replaced the cube with own object and it worked. But now 3 days later when I make a build the touch doesn't work anymore. I just found out on Github the text behind the sample scene "updated scene camera and removed touch phase" removed the touch phase?? Why is that and how can I now place an object on a detected pointcloud/ plane? Thanks!

 

That change is quite old (~5 months). The change there was to always instantiate the prefab if it had not yet been instantiated. Previously, it would only instantiate the prefab if

1. It had not been instantiated already and
2. This was a new touch

So, for instance, it wouldn't have worked if you touched the screen in some corner where there wasn't a plane, and then dragged your finger over a plane.

This change should not have stopped your scene from working. If your sample no longer works, what changed in between? Did you update the samples repo? Change your code elsewhere?

It is always helpful to check the adb logcat output for errors; perhaps an exception is thrown which prevents your scene from working, or some other error message may indicate the problem. You can easily filter the output for messages from Unity with

adb logcat -s Unity

 

is there a way how to update the "plugin" itself?

btw: I am using the ARF and it works like a charm on both platform. Great job!

 

Hi @tdmowrer , any news on image targeting/image recognition feature in ARFoundation. Shoul we expect it in next update?and when it would be?

 

When do you think Image Tracking and Object Tracking be ready in ARFoundation ?

Do you suggest to stick with Vuforia, or better Google's ARCore for Unity ?

 

Hi, Google employee here.

If you are fully happy with AR Foundation's surface, you should use it. However, if you need functionality that is currently only available in the Google ARCore for Unity plugin, you should use the Google ARCore for Unity plugin.

We will be moving more API surfaces to AR Foundation over time, but it will likely take us multiple months to migrate everything over. We're adding new features in parallel and at the moment features end up first in the Google ARCore for Unity plugin.

 

Looking at the samples I think it is possible to combine two and use sort of progressive enhancement:
- Implement shared part of your AR solution in AR Foundation
- Extend your solution with platform specific ARCore\ARKit code (with maturation of AR Foundation can become cross-platform)

I think that nice example here is an ARWorldMap sample which is ARKit specific, though runs through AR Foundation:
https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...master/Assets/Scripts/ARWorldMapController.cs

 

Hi chaosemer,

Does this also mean that control over the camera torch (flashlight) will be available in the near future? I am working on a AR Game that utilizes the camera light A LOT as an integral part of the gameplay and currently only can port it for iOS, since ARKit is the only one supporting control over the light. I only came across an old Git request from 2017 where people already asked for such support but didn't receive an answer to when or even if this basic feature will be available and that was 3 years ago. I need to develop it for both iOS and Android, so in case this feature will never come, I would now be early enough in the dev process, to save time and money and move on to other projects. Do you know about the current status of this feature? Thank you for your answer and time in advance!