ARKit – Page 18 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

September 12, 2017

Improved iPhone AR Capabilities Produces The Machines

The Apple event at the brand new Steve Jobs theatre revealed details of iPhone 8, the next version of Apple’s signature device. Since the launch of ARKit, there has been much excitement over the possibilities offered, which saw fruition with a presentation at the event.

Atli Mar from Directive Games presented a demonstration of The Machines, a title which allows for competitive multiplayer in augmented reality (AR), one of the first titles to implement this. AR allows users to use their position in the real world to gain an advantage, by moving to a tactically superior position.

Using Unreal Engine to create high-quality graphics, and the ARKit surface detection to project a complete 3D rendered battlefield on to a table top, floor or other surface, users will be able to move around the battlefield and see their forces move in real time, supported by the power of the new iPhone8.

Players can control either the rebellious human faction, or the powerful robot hive-mind, creating and deploying different kinds of robots and putting up defences to protect their home base from attack.

Further information can be found at the official The Machines website.

The developers of The Machines expect the title to be available on the Apple App Store later this month when the iOS 11 update rolls out.

VRFocus will bring you further information on The Machines as it becomes available.

September 12, 2017

Google fires back at Apple with ARCore. What about Tango?

A few weeks after the release of ARkit from Apple, Google is trying to catch-up and to overcome the limitations of Tango. Google, as well as Apple, is pursuing the goal is to bring AR features on the largest possible share of mobile devices.

Google is under obvious pressure to compete with Apple’s lightweight version of AR, which has produced a small wave of clever experiments since its announcement in June. But the company’s head of augmented and virtual reality, Clay Bavor, describes ARCore as an intentional long-term outgrowth of Tango. “Our approach with Tango was to un-constrain ourselves,” Bavor says. “That really let us learn a lot, figure out what the use cases are, and push forward the technology — out ahead of what would have been possible with standard smartphone hardware.”
Google released a couple of consumer products with Tango, but they’ve had little mainstream appeal. Meanwhile, he says, Google was taking key pieces and adapting them for ordinary phones, where they could work without Tango’s two extra cameras.

Continue reading the original article here: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/29/16219696/google-arcore-augmented-reality-platform-announce-release-pixel-samsung

September 11, 2017

Discover What’s In The Box With AR

Since the launch of the ARKit by Apple, a number of companies have been experimenting with its capabilities. Augmented reality (AR) content creators 8ninths are taking advantage of the powerful AR tools available in ARKit to allows iPhone users to receive interactive daily content from The Box AR.

Every day, users of The Box AR will receive virtual package in an opaque white box that can be opened to reveal a short-form AR experience for smartphone. The Box may contain collectable characters, interactive pets, art tools, environmental filters. Content can be collected and then re-assembled by users to be shared with friends or on social media.

“THE BOX is our vision for the future of marketing in Augmented Reality,” says 8ninths CEO Adam Sheppard. “This novel ‘Short Form AR’ format has the potential to become a daily way for users to receive mind blowing new content and share with others. We think that brands will be excited to be able to connect with their audience through this novel format in a way they’ve never been able to before. These brief escapes from the real world are almost like a daydream, changing your mood and environment for a short time – without having to wear a headset.”

The upgrade to iOS will allow all iPhone users who own a model 6s upwards, along with some iPad users to access the enhanced capabilities of the ARKit. A release date for iOS 11 has not yet been confirmed, but once it is available, iPhone users will be able to download The Box AR for free from the Apple App Store.

A video demonstration of The Box AR is available to view below.

VRFocus will bring you further news on The Box AR and other ARKit apps as it becomes available.

September 11, 2017

Vor iPhone-Vorstellung: Google veröffentlicht Experimente mit ARCore

Apples Vorstellung von ARCit auf der WWDC im Juni muss für Google ein Schock gewesen sein: Schließlich hat der Suchmaschinenriese und Android-Entwickler mit Tango schon lange im Augmented-Reality-Bereich Fuß fassen wollen. Im Gegensatz zu ARKit benötigt Tango aber spezielle Hardware, die erst in zwei Smartphones zu finden ist. Einen Tag vor Apples Pressekonferenz, auf der der Konzern seine neuen iPhone-Modell präsentieren wird, veröffentlich Google einige Experimente zu seiner jüngst vorgestellten Augmented-Reality-Lösung ARCore.

ARCore: Von Streetview bis zur Espressomaschine

Zu den jetzt von Google im Blog vorgestellten Experimenten gehört auch ein im Prinzip alter Bekannter. Nämlich um das Training, eine bisher unbekannte Espressomaschine zu bedienen. Das VR-Experiment zeigte Erfolg, die Probanden lernten in der virtuellen Realität wesentlich besser als durch YouTube-Video-Anleitungen. Während die Menschen, die in der virtuellen Realität gelernt hatten, nur zwei Durchgänge für einen guten Espresso brauchten, benötigten YouTube-Lernende im Schnitt drei Durchgänge. Nun hat Google die Anleitung in die Augmented Reality mit ARCore gebracht. Mit besseren Ergebnissen als in VR? Laut Google-Blog haben es Anwender gleich beim ersten Versuch geschafft, einen Espresso mit perfekter Crema an der ihnen neuen Maschine herzustellen.

Google ARCore Espresso

Ein anderes Experiment mit ARCore nutzt Streetview und lässt einen in das Britische Museum hereinzoomen. Ein weiteres Projekt richtet sich an Architekten, die Entwürfe direkt über die echte Umgebung projizieren können. Damit lassen sich dann Bauvorhaben direkt vor Ort quasi in der „Realität“ begutachten. Diese und viele weitere ausgewählte Experimente wie beispielsweise Morph Face stellt Google auf seinem Blog und auf der Seite thisisarcore.com vor. Googles ARCore setzt zwingend Nougat alias Android 7 voraus. Morgen ab 19 Uhr hat dann Apple sicherlich seine Antwort parat und wird einige ausgewählte ARKit-Projekte vorstellen. Mit iOS 11 werden alle aktuellen iPhones und iPads ARKit nutzen können. Wir werden zeitnah berichten, was sich Neues in dem Sektor tut.

(Quelle: Google-Blog)

Der Beitrag Vor iPhone-Vorstellung: Google veröffentlicht Experimente mit ARCore zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

September 10, 2017

Devs Use ARKit to Make an iPhone Motion Controller for HoloLens

Ok, these ARKit experiments and mashups are getting darn cool. Here VR development studio Emergent linked together HoloLens and an iPhone with ARKit to turn the iPhone into a 6DOF motion tracked controller.

The tracking may be somewhat rudimentary, but it’s becoming increasingly clear the many possibilities that come with smartphones that are able to understand their position in the world. From a fusion of AR and VR to a portal into volumetric video, we’ve seen some really cool ARKit experiments, but none that have used an iPhone as a motion controller instead of a display.

Emergent has demonstrated the possibility by turning an iPhone into a motion controller for a HoloLens game. In the game the HoloLens is represented as the player’s helmet, while the iPhone is a sci-fi laser gun that’s tracked in all dimensions. Taking things a step further, the studio demonstrates how ~~bullet~~ laser holes can be convincingly overlaid onto objects in the environment, thanks to the devices’ ability to map the geometry of the environment.

It’s clear from the video that there’s a good deal of latency and that the precision isn’t particularly high (after all, ARKit isn’t intended for immersive experiences), and keeping the tracking systems of both HoloLens and ARKit in sync over distance and time could post a challenge. But the potential for the use-case is clear—especially as smartphones begin to hit the mainstream with more precise motion tracking instruments—a well tracked smartphone can be a flexible and widespread tool for AR and VR alike.

The post Devs Use ARKit to Make an iPhone Motion Controller for HoloLens appeared first on Road to VR.

September 10, 2017

Tenor Lets Developers Put GIFs Into Augmented Reality Apps And Games

Tenor is announcing a software development kit (SDK) for Unity and Apple’s ARKit developers, enabling them to integrate animated GIFs into augmented reality apps and games.

With Tenor’s SDK, it becomes easier to search for and share GIFs, the repetitive animations that usually convey something funny. GIFs are decades old, but they’re more popular than ever on mobile devices, where (slightly) moving images can convey a lot more than words. Tenor has made it easy to search for and share GIFs, and now it’s making it easy to insert them into augmented reality apps, which use glasses or smartphones to overlay graphics and animations on top of the real world.

Apple is expected to make a lot of noise about ARKit, its platform for AR on iOS, next week at its event. By making GIFs easier to search for and share, Tenor helps people personally express themselves better, said Erick Hachenburg, the cofounder of Tenor, in a conversation last week with VentureBeat.

As AR grows, Tenor wants to give people the power to express themselves in a new medium. People already use Tenor hundreds of millions of times per day to express themselves with GIFs in mobile messaging apps. In AR, you could wear a GIF of your mood or your favorite actor on your T-shirt or put life-size GIFs of friends across the dinner table.

Tenor already collaborated with Dift, a digital studio known for their viral AR demos, to imagine what messaging might look like using Tenor’s ARKit API in a concept video.

Tenor was founded in 2014 by a team of serial entrepreneurs (David McIntosh, CEO; Hachenburg; and Frank Nawabi) who spent the prior seven years building companies in online video. Tenor was founded on the premise that mobile would create an opportunity for a new format of video built for the core purpose of mobile: communication. The company has 40 people in three offices, and it is based in San Francisco.

Tenor has raised $15 million to date. The company’s backers include Redpoint Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Tenaya Capital, and others. More than 250 million people each month use Tenor to add tone to their mobile messaging conversations by adding GIFs that visually communicate their thoughts and feelings. Tenor’s distribution partners include Facebook and Apple, and its content partners include 21st Century Fox, DreamWorks, Netflix, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Showtime, Sony, Warner Bros., Viacom, and Vevo.

A poll by Tenor and Harris Poll found that 64 percent of 18- to 44-year-old people believe that GIFs more effectively express their emotions — as compared to either words or emojis.

This post by Dean Takahashi originally appeared on VentureBeat.

Tagged with: ARKit, Tenor

September 10, 2017

Remote AR To Add Support For ARKit

The battleground that is augmented reality (AR) stepped up a gear in intensity at the end of last month, when Google, who had been no stranger to looking into the medium previously with its work on AR with Project Tango, announced its AR development platform ARCore in answer to Apple’s move into the tech space. A move spearheaded by its own development software the similarly named ARKit.

ARKit

Support was quick to be announced for ARCore, but that doesn’t mean that throughout the weeks that hasn’t been more and more updates and support added to Apple’s effort. The latest to add ARKit support is Scope AR makers of live support video calling application Remote AR which will be supporting ARKit “as soon as iOS 11 launches”.

“This is a game changer for any enterprise looking to implement the latest advancements in AR now.” Explained Scott Montgomerie, the CEO of Scope AR. Which is based in San Francisco and which also has with offices in Edmonton, Canada. “With our technology, any company can use an existing iPhone or iPad to implement AR within their workforces today, allowing workers to complete tasks faster and more accurately, while also producing significant cost and time-savings. While there are many apps coming to ARKit that will inevitably bring AR to the masses, we’re the first solution leveraging ARKit that is truly impacting the bottom line for enterprise.”

Remote AR aims to save resources, whilst improving knowledge transfer and retention by combining AR with live video streaming, voice, 3D animation, screen sharing, whiteboarding and world-locked annotations. It is presently fully platform agnostic for Android, iOS, Windows and Google Tango devices simultaneously, as well as select smartglasses.

VRFocus will bring you more updates on ARKit and ARCore in the near future.

September 8, 2017September 12, 2017

Apple Preview: New iPhone Expected To Improve ARKit, OLED Screen Good For VR

Reports indicate the new iPhones on tap to be revealed next week by Apple could function as a best-in-class augmented reality device.

Apple earlier this year revealed its ARKit platform for developing augmented reality apps on hundreds of millions of its existing handheld devices. Since the release we’ve seen a series of impressive applications previewed on the Internet. Videos capture the immersive potential of the ARKit applications incredibly well even though they may be less impressive when viewed first-hand because they are delivered on a phone screen rather than presented on glasses and delivered directly to the eyes.

The technical difficulty of developing fashionable AR glasses people want to wear all day is extraordinary, and we’d be extremely shocked to see Apple release something along these lines in 2017. Instead, we expect the next iPhone to debut with new outward-facing cameras that improve upon the ARKit functionality Apple already debuted earlier this year, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The device is expected to also include a front-facing 3D camera that, while reports indicate could be used for payments or security, might also have AR applications. Now let me preface this by saying we’ve heard no solid reports Apple plans to include the following functionality in the new devices, but I certainly hope it comes to pass. Technology Apple acquired in 2015 could make FaceTime video calls much more fun. It is feasible this device could enable people to optionally have their entire conversation over video chat as animated cartoon characters, with all their expressions captured. In 2015, Apple acquired a company called Faceshift that allowed people to take their facial expressions and transfer those in real-time onto a myriad of cartoon characters.

Lastly, reports indicate Apple is paying Samsung a fortune for the OLED displays used in the new iPhone — contributing to the expected high cost of the device while paying the tech giant’s chief rival a major slice of the profit driving Apple’s extraordinary growth over the last decade. Apple is said to be sourcing the component exclusively from Samsung, which puts OLED screens in all of its phones compatible with its Gear VR headset. Samsung seems to have a lock on the market for these displays. Reports indicate Apple is considering an investment in LG to spur the company’s efforts so that it too can produce these components at the scale it requires for iPhone production. While Microsoft’s upcoming headsets are expected to use LCD screens with “impulse backlighting”, the vast majority of existing VR headsets have been reliant on Samsung’s OLED display technology to function. That said, we saw an excellent preview of a VR headset based on LG’s screens earlier this year. The takeaway here is that, with OLED screens finally powering the iPhone after years without, it might be possible to stick the new iPhone into a VR headset similar to the Gear VR and have a higher quality experience than has been possible with Apple devices in the past. Developers using ARKit have already tested inside-out tracking with earlier iPhones and found it to do a surprisingly solid job. With a higher quality display, developers might be able to prepare more enjoyable VR apps released on Apple’s App Store.

As with anything related to Apple, we’ll have to wait and see what the company actually deemed fit to announce and support. It is hosting its iPhone reveal event on the morning of Sept. 12.

Tagged with: apple, ARKit, iphone

September 8, 2017

Scope AR Demonstrates Remote Collaboration System With Apple’s ARKit

Scope AR is adding Apple’s ARKit to its software toolset, with a new demonstration showing how the technology can be applied to remote collaboration.

The video above shows how a worker can leave a series of notes or annotations on objects in the real world with the company’s Remote AR software, while allowing a remote worker on a second device to observe live. The idea is that you could have an off-site expert guiding a less experienced worker on-site. Scope AR’s technology is built around augmented reality-based instructions that overlay helpful information, like assembly steps, on a view of the real world, with the goal of helping companies save time and money by letting people learn on the job or be guided quickly and efficiently by off-site experts. The company says its customers include Caterpillar and Lockheed Martin, among others.

We’ve seen demonstrations of Scope AR’s software in an AR headset like HoloLens before, but the tech’s arrival on Apple’s devices opens up hundreds of millions of devices to the technology, potentially multiplying the usage scenarios for Scope AR’s technology.

“With our technology, any company can use an existing iPhone or iPad to implement AR within their workforces today, allowing workers to complete tasks faster and more accurately, while also producing significant cost and time-savings,” said Scott Montgomerie, CEO of Scope AR, in a prepared statement.

ARKit arrives on the Remote AR platform with the expected launch of Apple’s iOS 11.

Tagged with: ARKit, Remote AR, scope ar

September 7, 2017

ManoMotion Provides Hand Gesture Control For ARKit Apps

ARKit is almost here, and we see more demos of Apple’s Augmented Reality toolset every day. The latest, from Sweedish developer ManoMotion, is an additional SDK that allows developers to integrate hand gesture controls into their AR apps quickly.

Available within a few weeks, ManoMotion’s tech uses the iPhone’s camera to provide accurate hand tracking with 27 degrees of freedom. It recognizes a variety of gestures including swipes, clicking, tapping, grabbing, and releasing. The video included with the announcement features an AR adaptation of beer pong, with the developer pinching to summon a ball from the ether into his hand, and releasing to throw it into a set of computer-generated red Solo cups.

The company says that the tech demands a minimal amount of battery, CPU, and memory overhead. It also provides tracking for both left and right hands, and a set of pre-defined gestures for developers to integrate into their apps.

For now, the gesture technology remains locked to Apple’s platform, but ManoMotion promises that ARCore integration for Android will be arriving in the future. The SDK will roll out for Unity on iOS first, followed by native iOS 11 support at a later date. Interested developers can sign-up to take a look at ManoMotion’s documentation, and the company will also support their new SDK via email and their own forums.

Tagged with: ARKit, ManoMotion