Augmented Reality point of interest service environment

Overview

ARpoise, see arpoise.com, is an open-source Augmented Reality service environment allowing AR content designers to create and distribute AR experiences, and users to view location-based, image trigger, or SLAM AR content that is created in Unity. The goal of ARpoise is to provide an open-source, community-supported AR app for artists and other people who might not be able to develop their own apps, and as an alternative to commercial AR platforms that may go out of business at any time without warning.

Two different client applications have both been implemented for Android and iOS.

• The ARpoise client is a geolocative AR app running on most available phones. The ARpoise app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. The source code of the apps is available here. There is also an ARpoise client port to Virtual Reality on Oculus Quest, if you are interested in this, look at /p's work Volker's Dream.

• The AR-vos client app provides geolocative, image trigger and SLAM AR functionality, using ARKit on iOS and ARCore on Android. It therefore only runs on ARKit supporting iOS devices and ARCore supporting Android devices. We hope to merge the two client apps at some point, when the majority of smartphones support ARKit and ARCore technology. The AR-vos app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. The source code of the apps is available here.

Release Notes

See release notes.

Getting Started

If you are a content creator wanting to use ARpoise or AR-vos to deliver your own 3D content, you should start by reading this document. As you also will have to run you own version of the ARpoise-PorPOISe Back End you should also read the documentation for it in /php/porpoise. Also see the documentation folder and look at the documents Creating Asset Bundles, ARpoise Functionality Overview, and User Experience.

ARpoise Examples

The document ARpoise-examples explains how to see some examples for ARpoise. The examples include versions of the following pieces:

• Reign of Gold by Tamiko Thiel.
• Evolution of Fish by Tamiko Thiel and /p.
• Lotus Meditation by Tamiko Thiel and /p.
• Gardens of the Anthropocene by Tamiko Thiel.

AR-vos Examples

The document AR-vos-examples explains how to see some examples for AR-vos. The examples include various image triggered AR objects.

Functionality

• Content designers can create SLAM, image trigger or location-based AR experiences in Unity3d and request that we add them as project layers to the general ARpoise directory. These AR experiences can either be visible all over the world, or geo-fenced to be viewable only within areas defined by specific GPS coordinates.

• These AR experiences can be viewed by anyone who downloads one of the free client apps, ARpoise or AR-vos, onto Android and iOS devices. Since the AR experiences are individual project "layers" within an existing app, content designers do not have to create individual apps for each experience, saving them the trouble of pushing their projects into the App and Play stores.

• The assets making up an AR experience viewable in ARpoise are downloaded from the content creator's web server as needed, rather than being part of the client app downloaded from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. The content creators have to build Unity3D asset bundles for Android and iOS containing their assets. See the document Creating Asset Bundles.

• A layer containing an AR experience is made up of one or more individual augments or POIs (Points Of Interest). These are specified in an ARpoise layer definition containing the URL of an Unity AssetBundle. When showing a POI, the ARpoise app downloads this asset bundle and loads the 3D Unity prefab of the POI from it.

• Using the porPOIse back end, the functions available to content creators include dynamically adding POIs, removing them, placing them within world coordinates or relative to the user, and animations described in the next point.

• Unity-created 3D content of ARpoise can include animations in FBX files created in 3D modeling and animation programs. Furthermore, using the porPOIse back end, content creators can give POIs ARpoise level animations like scale, rotation, transformation, and fade to be started 'on create', 'on focus', 'in focus', or 'on click' of a POI.

• Image trigger based POIs are shown to the user once the app discovers a trigger image. The image trigger files are also downloaded via an assigned asset bundle, and therefore do not need to be built into the client apps.

• SLAM based POIs are shown to the user once the app discovers vertical or horizontal planes in the environment and the user taps on one of them.

• Geolocative POIs can have an absolute world location defined by longitude and latitude or they can have a position relative to the user's device defined in meters of distance in the X, Y, and Z directions. POIs with absolute locations can additionally be confined into an area around the user, so as the user moves through the real world, they will be dynamically moved to be within a given area around the user.

• POIs can be added to and removed from an ARpoise layer via a PHP based web interface similar to the PorPOISe for Layar web service. The placement of individual POIs can be performed through a Google-maps-based click-and-drag map interface. The ARpoise version of PorPOISe converts your data sets of POIs into responses to the ARpoise client. Things like JSON formatting and distance calculation are all done for you. ARpoise supports XML as data stores.

• One or more ARpoise layers can be shown at any location in the world. If there are two or more ARpoise layers located within the range of the client's location, a list of all available layers is shown to the user to allow them to select a layer. If there is exactly one ARpoise layer located within the range, only this layer is shown to the user. If there is no layer within the range of the client's location, a list of default layers is shown.

Components

Content creation for iOS and Android Client Application

See Creating Asset Bundles.. You will have to learn how to create assets in Unity.

Content publishing and management with ARpoise PorPOISe Back End

See /php/porpoise.

ARpoiseDirectory Front End (We manage this for you, unless you set up your own system.)

See ARpoiseDirectory.

ARpoiseDirectory Back End (We manage this for you, unless you set up your own system.)

See /php/dir.

GitHub repositories for Unity Projects (We manage the apps for you, unless you set up your own system.)

Repositories for Unity projects for ARpoise and AR-vos on Android and iOS.

ARpoise for Android

ARpoise for iOS

AR-vos for Android

AR-vos for iOS

Restrictions

• Unity behaviour scripts written in C# cannot be included in Unity-created 3D content of ARpoise.

• Unless you set up your own complete system, to add, remove and geolocate layers within the ARpoise-Directory you will need to contact the administrators of www.arpoise.com.