Augmented Reality has become a huge trend in the trending mobile applications development. Companies are implementing augmented reality in their apps for attracting a wide range of users and providing lucrative user experience. The two main platforms for developing augmented reality apps are ARCore and ARKit. In this article, we are going to discuss these platforms and will guide which one you can choose for your next augmented reality app.
ARCore vs ARKit
Both these platforms are for augmented reality apps development. While ARCore is developed by Google, ARKit is the offering of Apple. However, these aren’t the only or first platforms of augmented reality apps but their launch has spun the market of AR.
Augmented Reality is a very intuitive and exciting technology whose market would be enormous in just a few years. As per research, the augmented and virtual reality market is can worth more than $30 billion by 2020.
Features of ARCore and ARKit
The basic fundamentals of these two augmented reality kits are quite similar. There are 3 main verticals for useful AR software environmental understanding, tracking motions, and light estimation. Let’s know each one in detail:
Environmental Understanding
To detect how to keep the objects in place virtually, an augmented reality app should know what it is placing on them. This is where environmental understanding came in. Both the software development kits can find out the difference between vertical and horizontal planes at the device camera field of view, so the virtual items can be placed in an environment in a realistic manner.
Tracking Motions
AR needs the support of a device to track its position plus orientation when placed in the real-world surroundings. There is a technology Visual inertial odometry (VIO) by which both ARKit and ARCore can achieve this. VIO gathers the data from the motion sensors of the device and camera to check the spatial movement along all six axes. Hence, the virtual objects can be placed accurately in the real world, which is highly required for a smooth AR experience.
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Lighting Estimation
To make augmented reality objects real, they need to adopt the same lightning dynamics as like the real-world scene in which they are placed. Both these overcome this obstacle by utilizing the process called lighting estimation. Lighting estimation analyzes the ambient light which is sensed by the camera for applying photorealistic rendering of virtual objects.
Apart from these fundamental technologies, every AR tool kit comes with features that make use of proprietary technology. For e.g. on iPhone X, there is a TrueDepth Camera, while on some Android devices, there is a Project Tango.
Other Advanced Features in AR Development
Apart from Environmental understanding, tracking motions, lighting estimation, there should be some other advanced features with a good augmented reality SDK. And both ARKit and ARCore don’t disappoint you in this regard. These SDKs comes with some extra functionalities to deploy in your augmented reality app. Here are some of those…
2D and 3D object tracking: By this technology, the real-world objects are usable as markers for initiating the AR experiences.
Best use of anchors: Anchors prevent the content from getting lost in the case the user wanders away from the app mapped area.
3rd Party Integration: These SDKs can be integrated with 3rd party for better use in other mobile application development. Comes with the support of hardware glasses
Support world and facial tracking: geolocation, SLAM mapping, cloud-on device marker storage, etc.
How do ARCore and ARKit differ?
With similarities, there are also differences, advantages, and limitations of each.
There are very subtle differences between the capability of these two SDKs. The developers can develop games or other utilitarian apps to provide the users with a remembering augmented reality experience. The above-mentioned fundamentals i.e. tracking, environmental detection, lightning detection give the users an experience that they don’t feel as they are just simply looking at visual data overlaid on a camera screen.
ARCore is heading in mapping because of its ability to manage the larger maps. Although both ARKit and ARCore use sparse maps ARKit stores only the latest data and discard the older data.
Another difference is while mapping a scene Google is more efficient than Apple, hence the mapped area expands more quickly by Google’s ARCore SDK in comparison to ARKit. But on the other side, ARKit is more accurate in differentiating between horizontal and vertical surroundings.
How to use AR in your industry
Education: Supplement bookwork with engaging activities like helping kids learn the skeletal system.
Healthcare: A visual explanation of how medicines work in the body to train doctors of new treatments.
Fashion: Give shoppers the chance to try on clothes, glasses, or makeup from the comfort of home with a fitting room feature.
Real Estate: Show potential home-buyers what an empty floor plan could look like once it is filled with their favourite furniture.
Travel: Show off the amazing views from your hotel’s rooms with 360° tours on any smartphone.
Examples of ARCore and ARKit Apps
IKEA
The furniture giant has been leveraging Augmented reality to help buyers visualize the furniture items in their home before making a purchase. There is an app Ikea Place, the first app to use Apple’s ARKit tech. It will allow the buyers to visualize the furniture items wherever they envision it in their homes.
L’Oreal Makeup Genius
L’Oreal the makeup specialist is using augmented reality to bring a virtual try-on feature. It will let try different hair colours and cosmetics on your body before making a purchase decision. The customer gets a realistic idea of how the colour will look on her/him.
Wannaby’s Wannakicks
Augmented reality is not just for only clothing but has uses in footwear as well. The footwear company Wannaby’s Wannakicks introduced its app by which you can try 10 pairs of shoes within just 10 seconds virtually. Using “Wannakicks” iOS app, you can try a perfect pair of sneakers using AR.
Wrapping Up
Augmented Reality can be the next big thing in mobile application development especially when you are offering products or services which the customers need to visually see before purchasing. At Amplework Software, the best mobile application development company in India, we develop a mobile application using the best AR tools.
