AR Core has come a long way from its initial point. It’s up to the developers to enhance various fields with numerous possibilities and functionalities using this Augmented Reality technology. This technology has converted science-fiction fantasies to science-based realism. This budding technology is not commonly used in the ordinary sector of people due to its extravagant nature. Things started to change when there was a cliff drop in the prices of AR Core. It was now available on smartphones through developments in this technology.
Rigorous efforts and investments were made by Apple and Google on augmented reality when Apple came up with ARKit and Google with ARCore. Developers could easily access this technology through these revolutionary platforms, which was not conceivable earlier.
ARCore is a platform developed by Google to enable developers to flourish their career in building applications using Augmented Reality. ARCore authorizes smartphones to detect the environment, understand the surroundings, and interact with the real world through virtual objects. This is done using different APIs in smartphones. There are some APIs across Android and iOS to enable shared experiences. ARCore is designed to work on various platforms of qualified android phone running on Android 7.0 Nougat and later.
MECHANISM
ARCore uses these three mechanisms to integrate the virtual objects onto the real world and allow accurate interaction with these artificially crafted objects.
1. Motion Tracking: Motion tracking helps recognize and track the position of the phone relative to the environment that it is present.
2. Environmental Understanding: It allows the phone to distinguish the objects’ proportions and positions in the environment of all surfaces like a coffee table, walls, and obstacles.
3. Light Estimation: This feature allows the virtual objects to share the same lighting effects as real ones, thereby providing a more immersive experience.
WORKING
Dynamically ARCore does two things: It tracks the objects and phone’s position and develops a surrounding according to its understanding. For a developer to build an immersive application, it must understand the environment and place virtual objects accurately in that environment. That is why any AR app wants the user to move his camera around and scan the environment. Based on the understanding, the AR app creates an atmosphere of its own, where it overlaps the virtual objects.
The motion tracking mechanism utilizes the mobile’s camera and scans the environment to identify some interesting points, called features. Later it tracks how these points move over time; all the readings are integrated and based on that, the phone follows the position and movement.
Furthermore, it detects obstacles like a table, walls, and other stationary objects in the environment and can also evaluate the lighting effect to be given to the virtual items. By doing so, ARCore can build its understanding of the domain.
ARCore’s understanding will help the users to place the objects and other demographic information harmoniously. When we put a virtual object onto the real world, ARCore calculates its position relative to different object positions. By doing so, even if you leave that environment for some time and get back to it, the virtual object is present at the same place where you had kept it.
CONCLUSION
Augmented Reality is taking over the world by its unique use cases promises the developers new opportunities and a rigid source of income. ARCore alleviates the process of developing AR applications without needing to have intense knowledge of OpenGL, rendering, etc.
