Ask HN: How to get started creating AR apps?
Hey everyone,
I am a total beginner regarding AR and I would like to make AR stuff. Does anybody have any idea how to get started?
Thanks a lot!
I am a total beginner regarding AR and I would like to make AR stuff. Does anybody have any idea how to get started?
Thanks a lot!
Tldr;
There are two divisions of AR in my opinion, Marker based AR and Markerless based AR
Marker based AR: Platforms include Vuforia, ARToolKit, awe.js,argon.js
Markerless based AR: Platforms include Occipital Structure Sensor, Google Tango, and Hololens
People use Game Engines such as Unity and Unreal to make the 3D games and content, cause AR is just 3D games/content but you can see in front of you.
Just to cover all bases, Pokemon Go adds a little AR (3D content+camera+gyroscope-based rendering), but adds location based services to turn your world into your game.
Underlying Technology to make AR possible are:
Computer Vision:(specifically Feature Tracking and rigid pose estimation algorithms)
and Computer Graphics: (OpenGL, WebGL, 3D math for game development)
Marker based AR is cool, but not the best platform to build engaging, cool AR apps that people hope to build. The main issue here is that the content or apps you want to build is really dependent on the underlying computer vision technology that is built in the AR platform, and is confined to a small space.
Markerless AR is what I would recommend because it enables the reverse to what Marker based AR does, your content can be rendered anywhere in your entire environment! Another plus is Markerless AR is getting much better tech-wise (Depth Cameras cheaper, more accurate, and SLAM vision methods are super crazy robust), and now this technology being more integrated into mobile phones, which is great cause that makes these cool apps more accessible to people.
IMO, Markerless AR is the future as it gets more integrated onto mobile. Places to start looking to build Markerless AR apps would be Occipital Structure sensor (mobile AR on iphone), Zen Phone AR and Phab 2 Pro (mobile AR for android), and Hololens (but who wants that, its so expensive and you get a tiny FOV (no disrespect Microsoft).
I can expect this can be not super helpful as this is a broad overview, so shoot a comment or message of what you are interested in building cause I can get much more specific on the stack/knowledge you need to know to build the game/app you want.
Let me know if you or anyone else wants more details, as I can refer you all to links and resources that have helped me over the years. If you want to email me also, my email is aem336@cornell.edu
I am currently building AR on the Occipital Structure Sensor and I plan in a few months after my AR contract is completed, to build a course/tutorial blog for people to get into building great AR apps!