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XRFoundation vs ARCore for building cross-platform apps (or games)

Discussion in 'AR' started by JuanMiguelBesada, Nov 6, 2018.

  1. JuanMiguelBesada

    JuanMiguelBesada

    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2018
    Posts:
    1
    Hi guys.

    First of all, please if this is not the correct place where to post this, move it to where you consider better.

    So, I'm building a cross-platform AR app. Ofcourse I started checking XRFoundation, but as it do not have Augmented Images support yet, I have to switch to AR Core.

    And then it was when I notice that, I dont know what is really the difference between ARCore and the XRFoundation.

    I mean, for me XR Foundation is like a "wrapper" arround AR that allow you to "do it once" and under the hood it uses AR Core or AR Kit as it needs.

    But, ARCore is also Cross-platform. From my understand, ARCore uses ARkit on iOS. I'm correct?

    What is the direfference of doing an app in ARCore or With XRFoundation? Will I "squeeze" all the potential of ARKit (and ARCore) if I use XRFoundation? And using ARCore?

    Thanks you

    Cheers
     
  2. tdmowrer

    tdmowrer

    Joined:
    Apr 21, 2017
    Posts:
    605
    This is a great place to post this kind of question :)

    That's currently true, although that feature is in development now.

    Google's answer to shared AR experiences is called Cloud Anchors. This of course works with ARCore, but they also have a solution that works with ARKit. On iOS, your app would use ARKit, but Google Cloud Anchors will work there too. So while Google support Cloud Anchors for ARCore and ARKit, if you're trying to make a cross-platform AR app, you need to either use something like ARFoundation or write separate code for Android and iOS.

    ARFoundation is the multi-platform way to create handheld AR apps in Unity. If cloud anchors are a must-have, then you can either
    1. Wait until ARFoundation supports them (our goal is to do so by the end of 2018)
    2. Download the ARCore and ARKit plugins for Unity and use those platform-specific APIs directly.
     
    animorph and rob_ice like this.