Native multiplatform AR APIs (preview)

So.. making this thread because I haven't seen anyone talking about it yet on these forums, since working with AR API's that are platform specific, the idea of a unity native multiplatform API has my excited as I won't have to worry about separating out ARKit and ARCore references in apps built with Unity (messy stuff).. Haven't tried using the experimental ARinterface yet but it sounds like the Native multiplatform AR APIs will be using part of the arinterface - or something else entirely?

Source of the announcement of the APIs alongside Unity 2018.. meant to be coming to the package manager soon

https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/05/02/2018-1-is-now-available/

"A new, native, multiplatform XR API has been added in this release laying the groundwork for a more extensible framework that initially targets abstraction over handheld AR SDKs. The API is designed to enable developers to build Handheld AR apps once, and deploy across multiple device types. As functionality is added to this API, we will eventually deprecate the ARKit plugin on Bitbucket as well as the experimental ARInterace project on GitHub. Support for handheld AR SDKs will ship as preview packages in the editor."

Does anyone else know any more about this?

 

I was just searching the forums for exactly this! Nothing in the package window..

 

From the blog post itself, I commented (and so did another person) asking when - this is what they said



Rob

May 2, 2018 at 5:14 pm Reply


When will the handheld AR SDK’s be available in the package manager, as mentioned in this article?

1. 
   Charles Beauchemin
   
   May 2, 2018 at 8:06 pm Reply
   
   
   It is coming soon
   

 

Somewhat off topic but related-- Parkerhill is preparing to release a new Unity plugin, BridgeXR, for building unified multi-device projects. It's an in-editor SDK manager so projects can target different VR and AR devices, platforms and user interfaces. With BridgeXR, you dynamically load native content into your project, based on a current target sdk toolkit.

It operates at the app level so will be compatible with any native SDK developments with Unity. We're building bridges for ARCore and ARKit now, and when Unity comes out with its own API it'll basically just drop in as a new bridge.

Here's an intro video:

BridgeXR is in beta now, if you'd like to participate, message me and i'll send you an invite.

Jonathan

 

From @timmunity on another post on the AR forums (exciting news) -

The multi-platform API is in 2018.1 under the
UnityEngine.Experimental.XR
namespace (
XRSessionSubsystem
, for example). This is a low-level scripting API which is meant to be very close to the metal. We're also working on a higher level package called ARFoundation which will be the recommended way to interact with handheld AR in Unity. That will be released soon via the Package Manager.

 

Yeah, a month has passed since the release of 2018.1 but still no sign of AR-wrapper package for Unity.
At least they should keep as informed as for the estimated release date even if it's postponed.
I am afraid that if they are struggling so much to release it, the package will be released with a "preview" status so they can keep working on it but you cannot really rely on it.

This is getting a bit frustrating as I've kept my project on hold to build it in this new framework.
A comment on this from Unity side would be very helpful.

 

Keeping eyes and ears peeled here (feel like I open the package manager everyday to see if it appears)

 

Official thread for this is now here, locking this thread down as discussion will continue there

https://forum.unity.com/threads/multi-platform-handheld-ar.536313/