Google shows off stunning new AR features coming to web and mobile apps soon
Part of a ARCore’s new Depth API in the works
Google has been quietly working to improve its augmented reality platform, ARCore, since its official launch early last year. Now, the company says it’s ready to unveil some of the next-generation upgrades to depth detection and physics it’s achieved, which promise to make AR experiences seem much more realistic in the future.
The upgrades, part of ARCore’s all-new Depth API, will soon allow developers to perform what’s known as occlusion, which is when an artificial object can be blocked from view by other real-world objects in a scene.
Google says it’s able to do this through optimizing existing software, so you won’t need a phone with a specific sensor or type of processor. It’s also all happening on the device itself, and not relying on any help from the cloud. So long as you have a phone that supports ARCore, which is pretty much every new Android phone released in the last few years, you’ll be able to access these new features.
These go beyond occlusion and into more realistic physics and 3D mapping. Google has developed a way for AR objects to interact with the real world more realistically, move through an environment the way a real-world 3D object would, and interact with surfaces like you might expect physical matter would. For instance, in the demo I got to experience, I was able to create colorful shaped blocks out of thin air that could bounce off virtually any surface, even the handlebars of an exercise bike.
See the full story here: https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/9/20999646/google-arcore-augmented-reality-updates-occlusion-physics-depth