Book Image

Augmented Reality with Unity AR Foundation

By : Jonathan Linowes
2 (1)
Book Image

Augmented Reality with Unity AR Foundation

2 (1)
By: Jonathan Linowes

Overview of this book

Augmented reality applications allow people to interact meaningfully with the real world through digitally enhanced content. The book starts by helping you set up for AR development, installing the Unity 3D game engine, required packages, and other tools to develop for Android (ARCore) and/or iOS (ARKit) mobile devices. Then we jump right into the building and running AR scenes, learning about AR Foundation components, other Unity features, C# coding, troubleshooting, and testing. We create a framework for building AR applications that manages user interaction modes, user interface panels, and AR onboarding graphics that you will save as a template for reuse in other projects in this book. Using this framework, you will build multiple projects, starting with a virtual photo gallery that lets you place your favorite framed photos on your real-world walls, and interactively edit these virtual objects. Other projects include an educational image tracking app for exploring the solar system, and a fun selfie app to put masks and accessories on your face. The book provides practical advice and best practices that will have you up and running quickly. By the end of this AR book, you will be able to build your own AR applications, engaging your users in new and innovative ways.

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Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
1
Section 1 – Getting Started with Augmented Reality
Section 1 – Getting Started with Augmented Reality
Free Chapter
2
Chapter 1: Setting Up for AR Development
Chapter 1: Setting Up for AR Development
Technical requirements
Defining Augmented Reality
Getting started with Unity
Preparing your project for AR development
Setting up for mobile development
Building and running a test scene
Summary
3
Chapter 2: Your First AR Scene
Chapter 2: Your First AR Scene
Technical requirements
Exploring the AR Foundation example projects from Unity
Building the SimpleAR scene in your own project
Starting a new, basic AR scene
Placing an object on a plane
Creating a prefab for placing
Summary
4
Chapter 3: Improving the Developer Workflow
Chapter 3: Improving the Developer Workflow
Technical requirements
Troubleshooting with log messages
Debugging with a debugger
Testing with an editor remote tool
Simulating with Unity MARS
Summary
5
Section 2 – A Reusable AR User Framework
Section 2 – A Reusable AR User Framework
6
Chapter 4: Creating an AR User Framework
Chapter 4: Creating an AR User Framework
Technical requirements
Understanding AR interaction flow
Installing prerequisite assets
Starting with a new scene
Creating the UI canvas and panels
Creating the UI controller
Creating an Interaction Controller mode
Creating the interaction modes behavior
Testing it out
Using the Unity onboarding UX assets
Creating a scene template for new scenes
Summary
7
Chapter 5: Using the AR User Framework
Chapter 5: Using the AR User Framework
Technical requirements
Planning the project
Starting with the ARFramework scene template
Adding a main menu
Adding PlaceObject-mode with instructional UI
Wiring the menu buttons
Performing a Building and Run
Hiding tracked objects when not needed
Advanced onboarding issues
Summary
8
Section 3 – Building More AR Projects
Section 3 – Building More AR Projects
9
Chapter 6: Gallery: Building an AR App
Chapter 6: Gallery: Building an AR App
Technical requirements
Specifying the Art Gallery project UX
Getting started
Collecting image data
Creating a framed photo prefab
Hanging a virtual photo on your wall
Selecting an image to use
Adjusting for image aspect ratio
Summary
10
Chapter 7: Gallery: Editing Virtual Objects
Chapter 7: Gallery: Editing Virtual Objects
Technical requirements
Creating an Edit mode
Selecting a picture to edit
Highlighting the selected picture
Selecting an object from Edit mode
Avoiding intersecting objects
Deleting a picture
Replacing the picture's image
Interacting to edit a picture
Summary
11
Chapter 8: Planets: Tracking Images
Chapter 8: Planets: Tracking Images
Technical requirements
Understanding AR image tracking
Specifying the Planets project
Getting started
Tracking reference images
Configuring the user interaction modes and UI
Creating and instantiating a virtual Earth prefab
Building the app's Main-mode
Expanding the project with multiple planets
Making a responsive UI
Summary
12
Chapter 9: Selfies: Making Funny Faces
Chapter 9: Selfies: Making Funny Faces
Technical requirements
Understanding face tracking
Getting started
Configuring a new AR scene for face tracking
Tracking the face pose with 3D heads
Building the Main mode and menu
Attaching 3D Accessories
Making dynamic face meshes with a variety of materials
Using eye tracking (ARKit)
Attaching stickers to face regions (ARCore)
Tracking expressive face blend shapes (ARKit)
Summary
Why subscribe?
13
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To get the most out of this book

First, you need a PC or Mac capable of running Unity. The minimum requirements are not difficult; almost any PC or Mac today will be sufficient (see https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/system-requirements.html).

If you are developing for iOS, you will need a Mac running OSX with the current version of XCode installed, and an Apple developer account. If you are developing for Android, you can use either a Windows PC or Mac.

It is not practical to develop for AR without a device capable of running your application. You should have an iOS device that supports Apple ARKit (search the web; Apple does not appear to publish a list – check here, for instance: https://ioshacker.com/iphone/arkit-compatibility-list-iphone-ipad-ipod-touch), or an Android device that supports ARCore (https://developers.google.com/ar/discover/supported-devices).

In Chapter 1, Setting Up for AR Development, I walk you through installing Unity Hub, the Unity Editor, XR plugins for your target device, the AR Foundation toolkit package, and other software to get you set up. The projects in this book are written and tested with Unity 2021.1.

As the technology is rapidly evolving, I try to focus on existing stable tools and techniques. Regarding software versions and installation instructions, naturally, things can change, and I recommend you use my instructions as guidelines but also look at online documentation (links usually given) for the most current instructions.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book's GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

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