AR application with Unity and Vuforia Engine

Augmented Reality is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects reside in the real world enhanced by computer-generated information. We can define Augmented Reality as a system that inculcates the following three features: a combination of real worlds and virtual worlds, real-time interactions, and 3D enrollment of virtual and real objects. Augmented Reality is popular in the mobile app market, and its popularity is still growing. Various Games and apps like Pokemon GO revealed the potential for the commercial success of this technology.

What is Vuforia?

Vuforia is a cross-platform Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality application development platform with robust tracking and performance on different hardware including mobile devices and mixed reality Head-Mounted Displays (HMD) such as Microsoft HoloLens. Unity integration of Vuforia allows you to create apps and games for Android and iOS using a drag and drop workflow. A Vuforia sample is available on the Unity Asset Store, with several reasonable examples indicating the most important features of the platform.

Vuforia supports many third-party devices such as Augmented and Mixed Reality glasses and VR devices with back-facing cameras such as the Gear VR headset. We can use any device with a camera to test Augmented and mixed reality games and applications built in Unity with Vuforia. Vuforia provides the image targets that are printable and that will trigger the appearance of 3D objects created in Unity3D.

Hardware and software requirements

 The supported mobile device operating system versions are required for running applications created with the Vuforia SDK. This also includes supported OS and Unity versions for developing applications with Vuforia.

Mobile Devices:

1. Android- 4.1.x+
2. IOS- 9+ OS X

Optical see-through digital eyewear devices:

The Vuforia SDK supports a range of optical see-through digital eyewear devices to sense real world AR application experience. These supported devices, along with their required operating system (OS) versions. 

1. HoloLens
2. ODG - R7+
3. Epson - BT–200

Supported features

Vuforia provides several features to allow development of Augmented and Mixed Reality applications.

1. Image Targets: Image Targets illustrate those images that Vuforia Engine can detect and track. The Engine tracks the image by comparing extracted realistic features from the camera image against a known target resources database. When the Image Target is detected, Vuforia Engine augments the content seamlessly using best image tracking technology.
2. Multi Targets: It is a collection of multiple image targets combined into some geometric arrangements such as boxed. it's use cases are in marketing, packaging and instructional contexts.
3. Cylinder Targets: Cylinder Targets enable to detect and track images wrapped on cylindrical and conical shapes.
4. User Defined Targets: Tracks images captured by users at runtime
5. Cloud Recognition: Cloud based Image Targets that enables developers to host and manage image targets online.
6. Device Tracking: 3DoF and 6DoF positional trackings
7. VuMark: Customizable encodable AR markers, so we can have a unique VuMark for every unique object.
8. Object Reco: Tracks 3D objects from scans
9. Model Targets: Model Targets are used in vuforia engines to recognize and track particular objects in the real world based on the shape of the objects. Various objects can be used as model targets from home appliances and toys, to vehicles, to industrial equipment and also in architectural landmarks.