AR comes to Android with the ARCore SDK

Google's ARCore SDK preview is available today for Unity 2017.2b9. ARCore will enable AR (Augmented Reality) development for the entire Android ecosystem, giving developers the ability to build captivating AR experiences for millions of users, without the need for specialized hardware.

Unity and Google have a shared vision of democratizing Virtual and Augmented Reality development. Unity’s XR team has been working hand-in-hand with the Immersive Computing team at Google to overcome some of the most difficult challenges AR development presents.

One of the biggest hurdles that developers face is ensuring that their apps and experiences are available to the widest possible audience. To overcome this, AR needs to work on hardware that users already own, such as mobile devices. Technologies like ARCore present new opportunities for delivering AR experiences to millions of users. With this SDK, developers can use Unity to easily create new high-performance AR Android Apps or upgrade existing apps with exciting AR functionality.

ARCore unlocks an entirely new set of features for mobile development: creating virtual objects, rendered over real world views, that connect information directly to real world objects and react as if physically there.

• Environmental understanding. Allows virtual objects to be placed in a way that physically connects with the real world.
• Motion Tracking. Allows users to walk around and interact with virtual content that is rendered in the 3D world.
• Light Estimation. Create realistic looking objects by having its own light change dynamically according to the environment lighting.

The SDK currently supports development for Google Pixel or Pixel XL, and Samsung Galaxy S8 running Android 7.0 Nougat and above. It requires Unity version 2017.2 beta 9 or later and Android API SDK v.24 or later.

To set up the SDK, follow these steps:

• Download and import the ARCore SDK for Unity.
• Configure Unity for ARCore development following the steps in the Unity Forum.

We can't wait to see the amazing experiences that our development community produces with ARCore.

Join the discussion on our forum to be a part of this exciting new frontier in AR!