ARFoundation + Cloud anchors

Hi, can I use cloud anchors feature together with current version of ARFoundation somehow?

 

I am also interested in this, may just be a matter of time before the functionality is added

 

Hi All-

First-class support for Cloud Anchors is being planned now. We will update this thread when there are more details on a timeframe for it.

-Best,
Mike

 

Mike,

It has been a month since that post. Do you have an update on this? Unreal even already has this integrated in latest. Usually we can rely on Unity to keep up but this ARFoundation change has my clients questioning why we can't get that functionality in their unity project.

 

Hi folks,
If you want to have latest features, you can still use the particular platform specific plugins to get them before we get them into ARFoundation. ARFoundation gives you a cross-platform way of accessing features, so you will have to be a bit patient while we work out exactly what that means for each feature.
Cheers.

p.s. here are the platform specific plugin forums: https://forum.unity.com/forums/arkit.139/ and https://forum.unity.com/forums/arcore.137/

 

Thanks Jimmy,

The only problem with this is the point of the Google Cloud Anchors stuff is it was created to be cross platform so it is difficult to see how it all lives together with 2018. This is particularly a problem since the individual ARKit and ARCore plugins are no longer included in the project but are now in packages. The docs on Google's site for it don't seem up to date since they say it will work on Unity 2017 and later but with the new package system that doesn't seem correct.

I do not understand from your post how we would set up a project in 2018 that supported both ARKit and ARCore and used Cloud Anchors that are compatible across iOS and Android.

Is there specific packages we can load that have support for the cloud anchors on both iOS and Android that doesn't use the AR Foundation?

 

Thanks Jimmy,

The only problem with this is the point of the Google Cloud Anchors stuff is it was created to be cross platform so it is difficult to see how it all lives together with 2018. This is particularly a problem since the individual ARKit and ARCore plugins are no longer included in the project but are now in packages. The docs on Google's site for it don't seem up to date since they say it will work on Unity 2017 and later but with the new package system that doesn't seem correct.

I do not understand from your post how we would set up a project in 2018 that supported both ARKit and ARCore and used Cloud Anchors that are compatible across iOS and Android.

Is there specific packages we can load that have support for the cloud anchors on both iOS and Android that doesn't use the AR Foundation?

 

for your specific needs you would go to https://developers.google.com/ar/develop/unity/quickstart-ios and https://developers.google.com/ar/develop/unity/quickstart-android and follow instructions there. you will notice for the ios instructions, it tells you to get https://bitbucket.org/Unity-Technologies/unity-arkit-plugin/src/default/

 

But this conflicts with the packages in 2018, correct?
If we integrate those two libraries directly without the packages it is not compatible with AR foundation so we would have to do all the cross platform work with multiple cameras and Arkit and core controllers. So all that work would get thrown away when you do integrate the systems right?

If so, the question remains what is the timeline for getting this feature integrated into 2018 and AR foundation? This feature has been available since GDC and customers are requesting it.

Is there any example of cross platform AR in 2018 without using AR foundation?

 

I'm interested in cloud anchors working with AR Foundation as well.

 

S

Hi Jimmya, Any update on this at this point or any update on Xcode 10 support on Unity Cloud build? Thanks!

 

Hi, any updates regarding AR Foundation support for Cloud Anchors?

 

Still no updates as of Feb 2019??

 

For now we have managed to implement cloud anchors alongside AR Foundation as a tech test, but it would be good to know if/when we can expect an update to this in order to evaluate if we should put more work into refining it right now. Please could someone at least give a crude update about the timeline and/or priority of Cloud Anchors in AR Foundation?

 

Let's face it - Cloud Anchors in AR Foundation will never be released. The discussion is from 2016 and still nothing :/

 

The first post is dated "July 2, 2018"

 

Digging up the topic.. Any updates ?

 

Any updates?

 

Any updates?

 

Any updatos?

 

Any updates?

 

testing 123 on updates?

 

any potatoes?

 

been a year. any roadmap?

 

Any updates?
We could literally build metaverse scale apps today with this, it's totally effing insane to me that nobody sees this as a priority. Without cloud anchors AR is literally just a S***ty novelty for marketing people to spend money on. How is this not priority 1 for like 20-30 people in the world, seriously?

 

Cloud anchors could be a useful Unity services thing. Hmm or maybe the biz potential and Unity's usual haphazard history in this area is what's slowing things down?

 

Placenote and ARWorldmap is the closest we get to point cloud anchoring.

I wouldn't expect Unity to go all in on point cloud mapping unless it was a service pillar or they acquire Placenote.

There is a bunch of other startups going all in on point cloud mapping, but you have to do a special handshake for those other companies to even give you access to their SDKs. I've spoken with every single provider, and Placenote is the only one that actually lets you use their product without initial hassle.

At least we currently live 1-2yrs in the future and can see the anchor advancement in the horizon. I've been using Placenote for the past 1.5yrs for the purposes of point cloud anchoring instead of solely using plane anchoring, obj anchoring, or image anchoring.

Phantom Cloud will be HUGE someday too. Looking forward to it from @mirek-burkon

 

#random-thoughts

From history, the most successful biz ventures Unity gets into are ones where obtaining money is involved.

Google worked so hard for this Deepmind ML Unity implementation, just so they could harvest $300/mo customers to Google Cloud. That is when Unity does it's best, when another company is throwing money at them to do something.

In terms of acquisitions, Unity seems to acquire then let them still run independent until they eventually die off.

 

Any update on this?
We need cloud anchor support for a unity project.
We tried to "fuse" the google cloud anchors unity example with ARFoundation but failed.

 

Think still, cloud anchor in ARFoundation, preferently not dependent on soon to be depreciated Unity UNet, or some other kind of possibility to coordinate real world position beween devices, is of urgent need since AR glasses like nreal are about to enter the world... Btw. Placenote states they are working on an android solution...

 

Placenote works with ARF 3 now, so I cant see why it wouldnt work on Android. This happened in the past 2 weeks. (you need to git lfs) https://github.com/Placenote/PlacenoteSDK-Unity/tree/arfoundation

I uploaded a unitypackage in their slack with ARF3 and URP, you could prolly use that as a starting point if you dont know where to start. I can confirm it works on arf3, URP, arkit3, ios13(and 12). On Unity 2018.3.0b1 (URP starts in that beta)

I havent touched android tho.

https://placenotedevs.slack.com/archives/C7GEQER62/p1567385797005800

 

PlaceNotes vs Azure Spatial Anchors?

 

I haven't tried Azure yet. I've been meaning to because I'm sure all enterprise will use that unless Placenote gets big wins on market share.

 

@jimmya any update on this?

Looking around I found that ARCore has a great tutorial on how setup a custom "Extensions for ARFoundation" (https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/arcore-extensions-cloud-anchors/#0) that utilizes the package manager within Unity. I can get it running perfect for Android however they do not have any way to get it working for iOS. Even though they support Cloud Anchors for iOS (https://developers.google.com/ar/develop/ios/cloud-anchors/overview).
I have attempted to reach out to the Google team for a feature request but haven't heard anything yet (https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/142625810). Working on a few custom solutions but hasn't worked as expected yet.

 

There is now a guide to implement Cloud Anchors on iOS. Has anyone tries this? https://developers.google.com/ar/develop/ios/cloud-anchors/developer-guide

 

This guide is only applicable to standalone ARCore SDK for iOS, which is not working with AR Foundation.

 

Ah I see. I'm going to try it out anyways I think.

 

This should still be valid using ARCore Extensions: https://arvrjourney.com/how-to-build-arcore-cloud-anchor-sample-for-unity-c2c4e8046f84
For iOS there are specific instructions here: https://developers.google.com/ar/develop/unity-arf/cloud-anchors/developer-guide-ios

 

I'm interested in cloud anchors working with AR Foundation as well.
Do you have a tutorial for instructing about AR Cloud Anchor and AR Foundation ?

 

Any luck with this? Run into a few walls trying to use unity 2020.x and the newest extensions package. Tried downgrading to an older version 2019.4. LTS but that seems dependent on networking that I think has been depreciated.

 

Just install the 'Multiplayer HLAPI' package manually via Package Manager.

 

Thanks. I finally got it to build with 2020.1.13f

 

If cloud anchors feature is still unavailable with ARFoundation, could this be possible to create a cloud-build database, use it to download and upload the ARWorldMap & placed prefabs' data?
Is this difficult or impractical to build, so I can't find any tutorial about this concept?

Any ideas would be helpful, thanks.