Google responds to Apple and introduces ARCore, a development kit to create augmented reality Android apps. It will bring virtual objects to 100 million devices
With the launch of ARKit, many industry analysts had complained about Google’s substantial inaction against Apple. The novelty introduced with iOS 11, in fact, seemed to give a clear and substantial advantage to the house of Cupertino in the field of augmented reality, one of the fastest growing sectors in the world of mobile telephony.
An immobility, however, only facade. Put aside Project Tango, which according to the same analysts did not have much chance against the creature of the developers of the bitten apple, Google has unveiled (a bit ‘by surprise) ARCore, development platform (SDK in technical jargon) to create Android apps to augmented reality. Even if at the moment it’s a beta version and, for this reason, available for a limited circle of developers, ARCore has already shown what it will be capable of once it will be available on our smartphones (initially it will be distributed on Nexus/Pixel and Galaxy S8 devices).
How ARCore works
Once fully operational – when version 1.0 will be distributed – ARCore will be usable by over 100 million smartphones. This is because the requirements to exploit its potential are not very high: internal sensors and a camera are enough to make virtual objects of all kinds appear in front of our eyes. Compared to the past, ARCore provides developers with three new tools to create virtual reality Android apps: motion tracking, understanding of the surrounding environment and adaptive lighting.
The tracking and environmental understanding are essential to allow the smartphone to “study” the environment in which you are, analyze the various elements (walls, floors, furniture and all the furnishings) and thus create virtual surfaces on which to place – and adapt – the various elements to be created. Tracking, moreover, gives way to adapt these elements to the movements that the user will make with the device in his hands. Adaptive lighting, on the other hand, studies and analyzes the light source that illuminates the environment and “draws” lights and shadows in the vicinity of augmented reality objects, in order to increase the degree of realism.
Differences between Project Tango and ARCore
The new development kit for creating Android apps will try to “democratize” augmented reality for users of the green robot. Unlike Project Tango, ARCore has no special requirements or needs from the hardware point of view and will be immediately available and usable by over 100 million smartphones. Augmented reality projects created with ARCore will not need dual rear cameras and “strange” depth sensors. Objects, as seen, will be created using the sensors already present in the latest generation devices and the rear camera (even single sensor).
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