Google launches ARCore, replaces Project Tango and competes with Apple ARKit

[WMGroomAK]

Google has announced their new Software Developers Kit (SDK) called ARCore that replaces their Project Tango Augmented Reality system and looks to compete with Apples ARKit.  Reading the ArsTech article, it appears that the ARCore group is a collaboration between the Android & VR Teams and has swallowed up the previous Project Tango, whcih 

 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/googles-arcore-brings-augmented-reality-to-millions-of-android-devices/

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Google is again doing a bit of internal product competition with Tango and ARCore. Google is best thought of as a group of individual product divisions rather than a unified company, and it's the teams behind these products that tell the biggest story about where these two projects are headed. Project Tango was cooked up by Google's ATAP group, a small skunkworks group that doesn't have a ton of resources. ARCore is a collaboration between the Android Team and the VR group, two groups with a ton of resources.

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While we don't yet know the hardware requirements, there's no reason for the ARCore hardware requirements to be as stringent as Daydream VR. Because VR is strapped to your face, any frame drop or stutter can make the user feel physically ill. To combat "VR Sickness," Daydream has a load of requirements designed to minimize the "motion to photon" latency, like banning all LCD-equipped phones from participating in the program, because LCDs are just too slow. For ARCore, because you're just looking at a phone in your hand, frame drops won't make anyone sick, and many of these tough VR requirements shouldn't apply.

 

For this SDK launch, there are just two supported ARCore devices: the Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8. Going forward, Google's blog post says it's "working with manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Huawei, ASUS, and others." When ARCore hits version 1.0 (I'm told that will be "this winter"), over 100 million users should have access to ARCore apps. Google isn't just aiming ARCore at Android devices, it's also releasing "prototype browsers for Web developers" that support the SDK, too, and the company says "these custom browsers allow developers to create AR-enhanced websites and run them on both Android/ARCore and iOS/ARKit."

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Motion tracking and environmental understanding were both things Tango could do—you'll basically be able to slap an item on a surface and walk around it, using the device as a virtual camera. The built-in "light estimation" capabilities are new, though. Out of the box, ARCore will try to apply the real life lighting to the virtual object, which should help virtual objects blend in more.

 

The key difference between ARCore and a sensor-loaded Tango device is that you're not getting depth sensing. Tango could actually see the world in 3D by sending out a blast of IR light and measuring the return time using a time-of-flight camera. Depth sensing in Tango led to my favorite Tango app: Matterport Scenes, which was basically a 3D scanner app. You could wave a Tango phone around a room or object and quickly get a (low-resolution) 3D, color model of it. While that was really amazing, the vast majority of Tango apps just wanted to use the "place stuff on a flat surface" feature, which doesn't need the depth sensor and will work just fine on ARCore.

 

ARCore will also have the benefit of what's essentially a "multiplayer mode," where data can be synced across devices thanks to the VR Group's "VPS" (Visual Positioning System). This is narrowing your location down with GPS and then having the phone's AR capabilities recognize where you are in a room, a kind of "indoor GPS." ARCore users in the same room can then share items in an environment, and one person's object manipulations could be seen by the other device.

This seems like it will actually make the implementation of AR features and Apps more prominent, which I'm looking forward to in navigation apps at the very least...  I would encourage reading of the complete article as there is a lot more information.