Polishing my ARKit experiment
Taking ARKit from technical demo to proper demo
A while ago I created a first quick ARKit experiment, which was relatively straightforward to put together based on the Unity ARKit Plugin sample code and some 3d models I created in Blender.
Recently I had the opportunity to spend a bit more time on it, to take it to the level of a proper demo. That meant adding a user interface, guiding the user through the setup process, adding some interaction, recovery in case tracking is lost and a bit of visual candy such as an app icon and a splash screen. Check out the new video below!
It’s always interesting to experience how much time it takes to get from a first functional prototype which shows a concept, to something which is really suitable for live demos. Taking it from that stage onwards to a real production app requires a much larger amount of work again, but even just polishing up to the stage shown in the video easily took a day or two.
While developing and testing, I experienced another limitation of mobile AR (in this case on an iPad), which is the weight of the devices. Holding a tablet up for a long time, especially in one hand, gets quite tiring on the arm muscles. Long play sessions might therefore be quite challenging to get through, which is definitely something to keep in mind while designing a mobile AR experience.
