Vuforia AR alternatives

hi,

Vuforia beta 4 just ended, and they released the pricing:
https://developer.vuforia.com/pricing

Cannot continue using vuforia with those terms, prices, limits etc. (including extra fees for each reco over the plan..)

Are there any other proper AR sdk's that work nicely with Unity?

 

We are in the same situation. Working with AR for Museums, who cannot charge for the user downloading the App.

 

Minimum $99/mo ???
Are they gone completely mad???

Alternatives, yes please!

 

I emailed them yesterday about their prices, asking for clarification, because it makes no sense. No reply yet.
I just found this website that has a list for AR SDKs with several listed as Unity ready:
http://socialcompare.com/en/comparison/augmented-reality-sdks

 

I saw there prices and it's ridiculous. AR isn't as big as VR is at the moment, but there prices are like it's made out of diamonds. I'm sure, they killed AR now, at least for lot of indie developers that were trying to give AR a chance and develop cool things with it to sell.

 

Emailed also about the internal app license, no reply yet.. will have to check that list.

Personally we'd just need offline, single marker tracking, no clouds or other extras, and one time license purchase (even if that is somewhat "expensive" and have to pay to upgrade in next versions or extra features..)

Small hope that something will change,
https://developer.vuforia.com/forum/license-manager/vuforia-40-licensing-discussion#comment-2047824

*going through the alternatives with unity plugins:
AR-Media prices/features: http://dev.inglobetechnologies.com/buy/

 

The best alternative is the Metaio SDK. There is a Unity plugin plus they are offering a 20% software discount right now (convenient timing?) with the code NEWDEV20

 

That's insane Monthly reco usage is a rip off, 5 sec and then it’s a new reco?! Looked at Mataio before and going to revert to them again, at least it's free for the offline apps.

 

The way it's written sounds absolutely insane. Surely they can't really expect that that's acceptable?

I have to think that 5,000 recos means "cloud recos", and they just aren't being clear. Surely they don't charge for offline recos with a database in the app?

Hopefully they'll clear this up soon.

 

@wccrawford nope, offline recos also counted i am a small agency, i simply can't afford it.

 

Metaio SDK licensing does look straight forward.

http://www.in2ar.com/index.php looks like a potential, but I couldn't find pricing.

Interesting side note, PointCloud, had a free SDK, but was recently acquired by Facebook to join Oculus.

 

Got some news from Qualcomm:
In order to address your concerns, we will be providing an additional pricing option - the Classic plan. This plan will include unlimited device-based recos for multiple target types including images, multi-targets, cylinders, user-defined targets, frame markers, and text.

We'll offer the Classic plan for a one-time fee of $499 per app, and it's available now. To sign up, please contact the Sales Team directly. We'll get it on the web site as soon as we can. Thank you again for your support of Vuforia. We highly value our relationship with you as developers, colleagues, friends, and business partners.

 

^ yeah that doesnt sound so bad anymore,
https://developer.vuforia.com/forum/vuforia-40/vuforia-40-pricing-update

Metaio does give unlimited apps for single payment though..

 

Its heartbreaking what has happened to augmented reality. I've been playing with AR frameworks for years and was expecting some open-source framework to be developed, or for openCV to add AR functionality. Instead, its becoming more expensive :/ Clients were already hesitant to use it and large costs weren't helping to convince them. With all the money we are asked to cough up for AR, we might as well pool our skills together to try and come up with an open-source framework ourselves.

 

The worse thing about those pricing announcements is the lost of trust in Vuforia.

I have a very bad feeling to work on a platform which is incalculable.

Only if the Vuforia team rolls back to the old business model immediately I could reconsider this platform for any further development.

Anything else is out of discussion.

We are already testing Metaio and Wikitude.
http://www.wikitude.com/store/

 

Same here. This is the first time I properly checked out the Metaio website. Even a high once-off payment to Metaio is better than any kind of recurring payment.

 

Looks like it's contagious...
http://catchoom.com/product/craftar/pricing/

 

Was alerted by Vuforia new pricing paradigm as well - luckily, if you don't require Cloud Recognition and all your target images / multi-targets are local you only need to pay a one time $499 to remove the water mark.

 

...per App, right?

 

Yes but form the other options its still the best, but creasy high in comparison to the old plans.
Sadly it seem the only option sine there is no other option out there that woks that good inside unity.

 

Metaio perhaps

 

2,950€/4,950€ for getting started with Metaio... that does not motivate me very much.
The question in that case is how many apps do i create that i get over the per app cost of vuforia.

 

Why the Pro License?
You need Creator for what?

 

I would like to use the 3D Tracking that is only available in the Pro License, the creator im not interested in at all.

 

OK

 

Some good changes in vuforia earlier this month:
- Ability to demo apps without a Vuforia watermark
- All features included with Classic plan
- Use your apps without an Internet connection
http://developer.vuforia.com/

 

ARToolkit is now free!!
"I am delighted to announce that ARToolworks has been acquired by DAQRI. With immediate effect, all of ARToolworks' Professional AR TOOLKIT software has been released for free use under a LGPL v3.0 license and is available fromwww.artoolkit.org. DAQRI is committed to encouraging a new round of innovation in AR development and will provide the resources needed to develop an exciting range of new features for the software.

This acquisition will be key in the launch of DAQRI's Open Source division, with the ARToolworks team joining and leading that effort."

 

Nice!
Any plans to support custom images as marker in future?

 

I hope so, every project i made so far, image marker where a crucial requirement.

 

and with Metaio not selling licenses anymore (because Apple just bought it http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/apple-metaio/ ) we, at least me, are in trouble!
Vuforia is not as powerful as Metaio (we are using 3D tracking and complex scenarios)

i'll look into a open source alternative for immediate tech crossgrade!

 

Interesting step from apple ... hope they are doing something nice with it.

 

ARToolkit already supports custom images.

"ARToolKit currently supports classical square marker, 2D barcode, multimarker, and natural feature tracking. Furthermore, ARToolKit supports any combination of the above together."

I remember using it when it was the first AR framework out and it only supported fiducial markers. I'm gonna play with it this weekend and see if it really is a suitable replacement for Vuforia

 

ARToolkit have gps tracking?

 

An advantage of CraftAR is that once you buy the SDK you have it for unlimited apps...plus you only pay once for both iOS and Android...all for EUR 1,990.

 

vuforia was sold to some other company (maybe not bad news though)
https://developer.vuforia.com/

did try the free ar toolkit while ago, but seemed like that the tracking is not as good as vuforia..anyone else had good experience with it?
http://artoolkit.org/

 

According to this statement from PTC (who bought Vuforia) it doesn't look good to me. Evidently Vuforia will be emphasizing "new ways to design products, to monitor and control products, and to instruct operators and technicians in the appropriate methods of use and service."

I'm tired of investing time in "platforms" to see them shopped around, sold, crippled, repurposed, etc. It's been awhile since I looked at ARToolkit, but open source is the way to go. It'll have to do.

 

I'm using ARToolkit (switched from Vuforia since v3.0.9 before they changed the license on v4). Although it's not as complete as Vuforia's solution, it does the job. However, they have a big bug with iOS and Unity 5: the camera is not detected.

http://artoolkit.org/community/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&p=7984#p7984

I have attempted to reach devs and mods with no luck so far. On Android works ok. Haven't tested with WPhone.

If anyone can shed a light on how to fix that bug, it would be much appreciated.

 

Cool, gonna check out ARToolkit. Finishing up my first AR app, and just can't justify me spending that much to use Vuforia especially when AR tech just isn't there yet. I guess ARToolkit is the chosen one!

 

Hello,

Did anyone known easyar.com ? No watermark and free AR solution. I'm testing it right now, it even doesn't require online app to create your own markers.

 

Hello,

Based on this URL : https://developer.vuforia.com/pricing

Can I develop an AR app using Vuforia for free if my app uses device recos feature & I am fine with showing the Vuforia watermark? Is it fine to distribute your app privately to your customers if having watermark is not a big deal?

Regards.

 

You should contact the vuforia team, your case could be falling under there "enterprise use" case.

 

Thanks fffMalzbier,

Already done that few days back. Now only if Vuforia forums were alive like Unity

 

There really aren't any alternatives to Vuforia? Vuforia hasn't worked in Unity since 5.2. Ever since Qualcomm sold Vuforia off it's been a total disaster. But, I think every other competitor has disappeared?

 

Seems like the way to develop for AR now will be just to use the SDK of the AR glasses you buy. Mobile AR doesn't seem to be working out.

 

What about this easyAR.com that miragestudio is talking about?
Did anyone tried it?

I watched their demo video and it seems very nice, but they don't say any thing about pricing.

 

Yes, I have. And it's really good.

 

Vuforia and Unity (correct version that works) published to XCODE. See attached.

This was suppose to be simple according to the youtube videos. I've spent days on the Unity versions that work and then finally got it all working perfectly in Unity but it won't publish to my iPHONE.

Any help? I'm trying to further the Augmented Reality Unity cause in a high government position but can't show this off to get funding....AR fans, please help...

 

I also was looking into Vuforia for industrial AR applications. Two issues.. First, yes it cost money now. But hey, that was their business idea and they want to monetize. Can't blame them..However, and second, it requires processing on Vuforia servers which means nothing proprietary, trade secret, top secret, etc., should use Vuforia. So, I went to openCV. I'd recommend you all just look into it. It's truly open source and can do all this stuff Vuforia is doing. You can run it on multiple platforms, including android. It won't be as straight forward as dragging in a pre-fabricated image target into the scene but that doesn't seem like something that one of you couldn't emulate and share (or sell in the asset store). Plus if you come up with a cool app you don't have to pay Vuforia! Don't get discouraged, just use the tools all these companies are using and charging a ton of money to put a nice bow around it. They're only selling convenience.

 

EasyAR is based on OpenCV, and so far, imho, better than other alternatives.

 

How hard is it compared with Vuforia?