ARFoundation 1.0.0-preview.22 Released

Happy Friday, everyone!

This morning, we published updated versions of all the ARFoundation-related packages. The latest versions are

ARFoundation 1.0.0-preview.22
ARCore XR Plugin 1.0.0.preview.24
ARKit XR Plugin 1.0.0-preview.20

Included in this update:

ARKit

• Support for face tracking

ARCore

• Support x86 and ARM64 (previously was ARMv7 only)
  
• Update to ARCore v1.6.0

Both

• Camera focus mode (automatic vs fixed)
• Plane detection modes, which lets you specify horizontal, vertical, or both (previously it was always both)
• Ability to enumerate and select a camera configuration, i.e., resolution (and framerate on iOS)

As always, you can update your packages from the Window > Package Manager menu. The samples repo on GitHub has also been updated to use the latest packages, and we'll be adding new samples to demonstrate some new features soon.

 

Great news, but checking packages in PackageManager I don't see any available version to update.
http://take.ms/fiZup
Same with ARCore and ARKit plugin
Unity v 2018.2.17f1

 

I forgot to mention that preview 22 depends on Unity 2018.3. If you are on a previous version, package manager will only show packages available for that version is Unity.

 

Awesome news

Is it include image recognition capability (Android)?
-I think that ARcore1.6 have it but Im not sure if you merge it in the ARfoundation...so I guess my bigger question is if there any feature deviation between using ARCore1.6 solely or use it through ARFoundatio? (except the cross-platform..ARKit...).
Thanks.

 

No image recognition yet. It's in development now and should be available in ARFoundation early next year.

 

Hey, thanks for the update. But I was accessing to lightEstimation toggle through ARSession script, right now there is no such a thing. Is it always enabled now or where did it get moved ?

 

Yes, this option has moved. From the changelog:

 

Wait wait, I'm confused. I thought the whole idea of AR Foundation was that you write code one time, and that works for both android and apple (arcore and arkit). This post seem to suggest some feauteres are now only available for 1 platform or the other. Are you saying face tracking will only work when building to iOS, but it won't work when building to Android?

 

That's true provided the platform supports that feature. Since ARCore does not support face tracking, that feature is not available on Android. You can still have an ARFaceManager in your scene, but it will never generate any faces if face tracking is not supported by the target platform. You can query for support at runtime by checking whether ARSubsystemManager.faceSubsystem is null.

 

I'm honestly lost then. If a platform only support specific features, why then go through the trouble of creating something like AR Foundation in the 1st place? Isn't it better then to just target a specific platform and use pure ARCore or ARKit to get the results you need? I'm not complaining, as my forum name suggests I'm new to this, so just trying to understand why go through all the trouble with AR Foundation then...

 

Good question. A few reasons:

1. While ARKit is currently the only platform to support face tracking, the current architecture will allow you to take advantage of more platforms as they become available. So if ARCore add this functionality in the future, then the user-facing code in ARFoundation doesn't need to change.
2. It is currently possible to implement novel data providers in ARFoundation -- ARCore and ARKit are the only two examples currently, but you could write a face tracking provider based on some other tech, e.g., OpenCV.
3. If you are using ARFoundation, then you cannot use other ARCore or ARKit plugins at the same time. So, if we did not add face tracking, for example, then there would be no way to use it without abandoning ARFoundation altogether.

 

@tdmowrer

Please clarify this statement from https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.xr.arfoundation@1.0-preview.17/manual/index.html about installing AR Foundation:
In addition, you need to install at least one platform-specific AR package (Window > Package Manager):

• ARKit XR Plugin
• ARCore XR Plugin

Is that incorrect? You only want AR Foundation installed?

 

I need two features, plane detection and image recognition (markers). The current AR Foundation doesn't support this, right? Can you share when it might show up?

So, to do cross-platform image targets now, I would need to use ARKit and ARCore and not AR Foundation?
Thanks Tim

 

I understand this is confusing. You cannot use these non-package ARCore and ARKit plugins. If you use ARFoundation, you should get your ARCore and ARKit support from the Unity package manager, not a plugin that you copy and paste into your project.

 

Correctly, image tracking is not yet available in ARFoundation. We are close to releasing it, but I do not have a timeline that I can share.

 

Thanks. I will be watching for the image update.

 

I can't wait for image tracking to happen. It's going to half my workload in my upcoming project.

 

Hello....are there any platforms for smart phones that support image recognition? Thanks!

 

You can use arkit and arcore separately or something like vuforia.

 

Hello @tdmowrer -- not sure if this thread is the right place to ask, however I keep finding myself back on this page.
I'm wondering if there is any update on the image tracking elements for AR Foundation. I've been using it for the various other features and find it to be easier to manage and significantly more stable than the stand alone plugin where I'm rolling the dice every time I launch regarding camera texture passthru.

The only thing stopping me from moving further forward is the image target bits.

I'm sure you get this alot, but I'm completely on board working with and testing bleeding edge code (alpha or otherwise).

So the question breaks down to this: Is there any news regarding the release of preview 23 or image tracking resources? Are you accepting alpha testers for the project?

Thanks for putting together a unified library, I look forward to the next release!

 

Image tracking will soon be released as a preview package compatible with 2019.2, and then backported to previous versions after that. There is no alpha testing group for this feature. Thanks for your patience -- image tracking is coming.

 

Hi @tdmowrer ,
Any update on image detection support for AR Foundation.

Thanks

 

@tdmowrer As of today Unity is on v2019.2.0a13, and even trying to build with a simple AR Foundation scene and a point cloud or plane manager will crash on iOS after a short time moving the camera around ( capturing feature points ), which seems like a major regression, especially as this is the version that you state you are targeting for the next release of the tech.

All requests from developers for updates on ARFoundation and eg Image Tracking seem to be getting ignored, so there's prob no point in me asking if there is an expected timeframe, so that developers can consider using it. It'll soon be half a year since Image Tracking was about to be released, since then a full Unity version has been released and still no support and very little feedback. It's prob best not to even mention the whole Remote issue.

Of course, when you guys do finally deliver and it all works, then a lot of this developer frustration will be forgotten about, but any information that would help devs make an informed decision on whether or not ARFoundation would be suitable for future projects would be much appreciated.

 

This is a bug in core Unity (not AR-related). You can track it here https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...malloc-with-allocator-dot-persitent-is-called
You can workaround the issue by using a development build, or 2019.2a10 (the issue seems to have been introduced in a11).

I'll try to give you all some clarity on why we've been delayed in releasing image tracking and other features. Our team's initial plan was to release an implementation of image tracking compatible with AR Foundation 1.0 and we made a lot of progress toward that goal. But in January we decided that we needed to perform a refactor of AR Foundation and get a set of initial functionality verified with Unity 2019.2. After that effort we revisited Image Tracking, Object Tracking, Face Tracking, and Environment Probes and have ported their initial implementations to 2019.2, 2019.1, and 2018.3. In that process the workflow has been greatly improved for image and object tracking.

Support for the new subsystems has been tested thoroughly and approved by our QA team and we are presently finalizing the packages. Getting the new packages through the gauntlet of our release management process can be time consuming so I will not promise an arrival date. But please be assured that we are working hard to get this functionality out with high levels of quality, usability, and documentation. I know this wait has been frustrating for some of you but we feel as though you will be pleased with the end result.

-Thanks,
Mike

 

Thanks for the clarification bro, it was much-needed . any chance to share or publish some information about the upcoming updates on ARfoundation, and mostly - timeline estimation(s)...?

More words...
The current state is that any version of ARFoundation will "chase" the updates of ARCore and ARkit"
for example, ARfoundation was matched to ARCore 1.4 ( or 1.6) and ARCore from then is now 1.8 and the ARfoundation is still 1.0....this is and will lead to much more delay in features release (especially between PR Time and The real-time)...So what's the endgame here?

Some more words...
I totally understand your situation Mike, when as u said that you practically refactoring systems core code... and it's important to do it right especially when we all of us developing in the highly advanced (and recently born) areas... with the same breath... @Mal_Duffin is right representing our eager state of mind, there are a lot of business opportunities that already there, waiting for us and eventually this is what drives this XR force....

Thanks, and sorry for the brain eating... []-)

 

I can easily understand why you may not be able to provide an arrival date and also thanks a lot for taking time to provide some information as well. So let me direct the question to another way; Is there a heavy heavy rough estimate at least that you can throw at us? I mean, you may not be able to say it'll be released in may but perhaps you can say 'before summer' or even 'in early summer'?. Or is it definitely closer than that? Can you at least point us so that we can arrange our clients according to that?