ARCore (Google’s Augmented Reality SDK)

What took you so long buddy?

Mbuyu Makayi
Aug 29, 2017 · 3 min read
Image Credit: Google

Google is about to release ARCore Augmented Reality SDK for Android and the only question I have is —what took you so long Google?

AR is an interesting space right now, the many oppotunities it brings are quite exciting. In my opinion AR has better adoption then Virtual Reality— if you are doubting just checkout how many of your friends on Instagram or SnapChat are using that flower filter and compare that to how many have even held a VR kit. You can see that AR is almost ubiquitous at this point.

In as much it is ubiquitous, building complex AR applications has been a pain for Android developers. Yes there are AR SDKs available to use like Vuforia SDK yet even with its greatness it still presented a number issues the last time I used it.

The first one is that even though it has Android Studio support— Vuforia documenation doesn’t do much of a great job of explaining how you get from zero-hero when using it in Studio. I found myself getting frustrated when I couldn’t find any detailed explanation on how to import my 3d mesh objects into the sample project provided and I didn’t have time to learn how to recreate them using openGL.

The second problem is when you use Unity 3d with Vuforia SDK as the primary development environment for the Augment Reality part of the application and then exporting the project as an Android Studio project.

  • The first issue was with version control — since two development environments were required for each part of the project, if any changes using Unity 3D were made in the AR part of the project, it meant having to re export the entire project from Unity 3d and then importing and compiling it it in Android Studio again. Any code changes made to the earlier version of the Android version of the project would then have to be added into the newly imported one. This quite a nightmare to keep up with.
  • The second issue was that there was the nightmare of figuring out how to achieve interaction between C# used to interact with the AR engine and Java used for Android side of things — a simple onBackpressed callback when in the AR view wasn’t so simple because the documentation on capturing events in AR engine was hard to find.

During the course of experimenting with AR , there was that longing for a better way of developing AR Android without having to Google myself into the dark web — yes Tango formerly known as Project Tango was there but the problem with Tango was something I highlighted in the following tweets:

That is why Google is announcement of ARCore is an exciting thing to see as an Android Developer because it has the potential to make AR technology accessible to so many people in the world due to Android’s existing popularity. By easing the process of development, developers will now be able to build complex and engaging content which is highly localized and acessible to all on a any phone — leading to new ways to teach,learn and entertain masses. I imagine Zambian kids in school using AR to learn topics like the Solar System in a manner that is immersive and rich but doesn’t break the school’s budget.

When Apple announced ARKit, I was envious of how easy it will be to build AR apps on iOS. I wished I had the funds required to be a dev on the platform but now I am at peace knowing that ARCore is here after the long wait — what took you so long buddie?

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Mbuyu Makayi

Written by

Software Engineer| Facebook Developer Circle:Lusaka Community Lead | Amateur Photographer | Fullstack Javascript

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