Tag Archives: Sceneform

New UI tools and a richer creative canvas come to ARCore

Posted by Evan Hardesty Parker, Software Engineer

ARCore and Sceneform give developers simple yet powerful tools for creating augmented reality (AR) experiences. In our last update (version 1.6) we focused on making virtual objects appear more realistic within a scene. In version 1.7, we're focusing on creative elements like AR selfies and animation as well as helping you improve the core user experience in your apps.

Creating AR Selfies

Example of 3D face mesh application

ARCore's new Augmented Faces API (available on the front-facing camera) offers a high quality, 468-point 3D mesh that lets users attach fun effects to their faces. From animated masks, glasses, and virtual hats to skin retouching, the mesh provides coordinates and region specific anchors that make it possible to add these delightful effects.

You can get started in Unity or Sceneform by creating an ARCore session with the "front-facing camera" and Augmented Faces "mesh" mode enabled. Note that other AR features such as plane detection aren't currently available when using the front-facing camera. AugmentedFace extends Trackable, so faces are detected and updated just like planes, Augmented Images, and other trackables.

// Create ARCore session that support Augmented Faces for use in Sceneform.
public Session createAugmentedFacesSession(Activity activity) throws UnavailableException {
  // Use the front-facing (selfie) camera.
  Session session = new Session(activity,  EnumSet.of(Session.Feature.FRONT_CAMERA));
  // Enable Augmented Faces.
  Config config = session.getConfig();
  config.setAugmentedFaceMode(Config.AugmentedFaceMode.MESH3D);
  session.configure(config);
  return session;
}

Animating characters in your Sceneform AR apps

Another way version 1.7 expands the AR creative canvas is by letting your objects dance, jump, spin and move around with support for animations in Sceneform. To start an animation, initialize a ModelAnimator (an extension of the existing Android animation support) with animation data from your ModelRenderable. 

void startDancing(ModelRenderable andyRenderable) {
    AnimationData data = andyRenderable.getAnimationData("andy_dancing");
    animator = new ModelAnimator(data, andyRenderable);
    animator.start();
}

Solving common AR UX challenges in Unity with new UI components

In ARCore version 1.7 we also focused on helping you improve your user experience with a simplified workflow. We've integrated "ARCore Elements" -- a set of common AR UI components that have been validated with user testing -- into the ARCore SDK for Unity. You can use ARCore Elements to insert AR interactive patterns in your apps without having to reinvent the wheel. ARCore Elements also makes it easier to follow Google's recommended AR UX guidelines.

ARCore Elements includes two AR UI components that are especially useful:

  • Plane Finding - streamlining the key steps involved in detecting a surface
  • Object Manipulation - using intuitive gestures to rotate, elevate, move, and resize virtual objects

We plan to add more to ARCore Elements over time. You can download the ARCore Elements app available in the Google Play Store to learn more.

Improving the User Experience with Shared Camera Access

ARCore version 1.7 also includes UX enhancements for the smartphone camera -- specifically, the experience of switching in and out of AR mode. Shared Camera access in the ARCore SDK for Java lets users pause an AR experience, access the camera, and jump back in. This can be particularly helpful if users want to take a picture of the action in your app.

More details are available in the Shared Camera developer documentation and Java sample.

Learn more and get started

For AR experiences to capture users' imaginations they need to be both immersive and easily accessible. With tools for adding AR selfies, animation, and UI enhancements, ARCore version 1.7 can help with both these objectives.

You can learn more about these new updates on our ARCore developer website.

Creating More Realistic AR experiences with updates to ARCore & Sceneform

Posted by Ashish Shah, Product Manager, Google AR & VR

The magic of augmented reality is in the way it blends the digital and the physical worlds. For AR experiences to feel truly immersive, digital objects need to look realistic -- as if they were actually there with you, in your space. This is something we continue to prioritize as we update ARCore and Sceneform, our 3D rendering library for Java developers.

Today, with the release of ARCore 1.6, we're bringing further improvements to help you build more realistic and compelling experiences, including better plane boundary tracking and several lighting improvements in Sceneform.

With 250M devices now supporting ARCore, developers can bring these experiences to an even larger and growing user base.

More Realistic Lighting in Sceneform

Previous versions of Sceneform defaulted to optimizing ambient light as yellow. Version 1.6 defaults to neutral and white. This aligns more closely to the way light appears in the real world, making digital objects look more natural. You can see the differences below.

Left side image: Sceneform 1.5Right side image: Sceneform 1.6

This change will also make objects rendered with Sceneform look as if they're affected more naturally by color and lighting in the surrounding environment. For example, if you're viewing an AR object at sunset, it would appear to be illuminated by the red and orange hues, just like real objects in the scene.

In addition, we've updated Sceneform's built-in environmental image to provide a more neutral scene for your app. This will be most noticeable when viewing reflections in smooth metallic surfaces.

Adding screen capture and recording to the mix

To help you further improve quality and engagement in your AR apps, we're adding screen capture and recording to Sceneform. This is something a number of developers have requested to help with demo recording and prototyping. It can also be used as an external facing feature, allowing your users to share screenshots and videos on social media more easily, which can help get the word out about your app.

You can access this functionality through the surface mirroring API for the SceneView class. The API allows you to display the Sceneform view on a device's screen at the same time it's being rendered to another surface (such as the input surface for the Android MediaRecorder).

Learn more and get started

The new updates to Sceneform and ARCore are available today. With these new versions also comes support for new devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy A3 and the Huawei P20 Lite, that will join the list of ARCore-enabled devices. More information is available on the ARCore developer website.

Introducing new APIs to improve augmented reality development with ARCore

Posted by Clayton Wilkinson, Developer Platforms Engineer

Today, we're releasing updates to ARCore, Google's platform for building augmented reality experiences, and to Sceneform, the 3D rendering library for building AR applications on Android. These updates include algorithm improvements that will let your apps consume less memory and CPU usage during longer sessions. They also include new functionality that give you more flexibility over content management.

Here's what we added:

Supporting runtime glTF loading in Sceneform

Sceneform will now include an API to enable apps to load gITF models at runtime. You'll no longer need to convert the gITF files to SFB format before rendering. This will be particularly useful for apps that have a large number of gITF models (like shopping experiences).

To take advantage of this new function -- and load models from the cloud or local storage at runtime -- use RenderableSource as the source when building a ModelRenderable. 

 private static final String GLTF_ASSET = "https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Sample-Models/raw/master/2.0/Duck/glTF/Duck.gltf";

  // When you build a Renderable, Sceneform loads its resources in the background while returning
    // a CompletableFuture. Call thenAccept(), handle(), or check isDone() before calling get().
    ModelRenderable.builder()
        .setSource(this, RenderableSource.builder().setSource(
                this,
                Uri.parse(GLTF_ASSET),
                RenderableSource.SourceType.GLTF2).build())
        .setRegistryId(GLTF_ASSET)
        .build()
        .thenAccept(renderable -> duckRenderable = renderable)
        .exceptionally(
            throwable -> {
              Toast toast =
                  Toast.makeText(this, "Unable to load renderable", Toast.LENGTH_LONG);
              toast.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER, 0, 0);
              toast.show();
              return null;
            });

Publishing the Sceneform UX Library's source code

Sceneform has a UX library of common elements like plane detection and object transformation. Instead of recreating these elements from scratch every time you build an app, you can save precious development time by taking them from the library. But what if you need to tailor these elements to your specific app needs? Today we're publishing the source code of the UX library so you can customize whichever elements you need.

An example of interactive object transformation, powered by an element in the Sceneform UX Library.

Adding point cloud IDs to ARCore

Several developers have told us that when it comes to point clouds, they'd like to be able to associate points between frames. Why? Because when a point is present in multiple frames, it is more likely to be part of a solid, stable structure rather than an object in motion.

To make this possible, we're adding an API to ARCore that will assign IDs to each individual dot in a point cloud.

These new point IDs have the following elements:

  • Each ID is unique. Therefore, when the same value shows up in more than one frame, you know that it's associated with the same point.
  • Points that go out of view are lost forever. Even if that physical region comes back into view, a point will be assigned a new ID.

New devices

Last but not least, we continue to add ARCore support to more devices so your AR experiences can reach more users across more surfaces. These include smartphones as well as -- for the first time -- a Chrome OS device, the Acer Chromebook Tab 10.

Where to find us

You can get the latest information about ARCore and Sceneform on https://developers.google.com/ar/develop

Ready to try out the samples or have issues, then visit our projects hosted on GitHub: