AR Quick Look

Recently, I finally translated all the SESSIONS related to AR on WWDC 2019.

I think Apple has made great progress in AR this year. In addition to the small progress in details and UI, I think there are four main aspects of progress:

  • Body occlusion: Introduces people to the AR world
  • Motion capture: Perceiving human movements and participating in AR interaction
  • Multiplayer Collaboration: Multiplayer AR is easier to complete
  • Reality Composer Editor: More convenient 3D footage editing tool with support for macOS and iPadOS, no longer dependent on Xcode and code

Today, however, I am not here to discuss these technical details. Session 612-Advances in AR Quick Look AR Quick Look (AR preview) is a convenient, fast and low-cost AR display scheme, easy to produce, easy to introduce into existing projects, and easy to use by users. And once you introduce AR Quick Look, you automatically have almost all the new features in ARKit 3.

Use profile

A brief introduction to the use of AR Quick Look: First, create the model with 3D software and export it to USDZ format, or edit it with Reality Composer and export it to Reality format again.

Web integration requires only a page with an A tag:

<a rel="ar" href="model.usdz">
 <img src="model-preview.jpg">
</a>
Copy the code

App integration will only need to implement QLPreviewControllerDataSource method:

// MARK: - QLPreviewControllerDataSource
func previewController(_ controller: QLPreviewController, previewItemAt index: Int) -> QLPreviewItem {
 // Return the file URL to the .usdz file
 let fileUrl = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "toy_robot_vintage", withExtension: "usdz")!
 let previewItem = ARQuickLookPreviewItem(fileAt: fileURL)
 previewItem.canonicalWebPageURL = URL(string: "https://developer.apple.com/arkit/
gallery/")
 previewItem.allowsContentScaling = false
 return previewItem
}
Copy the code

Yes, it’s as simple as that. No matter how complex the business is today, it only takes one person less than a week’s work to complete the learning -> development -> test -> launch process.

Of course, on the app, you can also use ARKit and RealityKit framework to achieve better and more powerful effects through custom coding. But this is much more time-consuming and laborious, and users are much more complicated to use.

Results demonstrate

I have no doubt that e-commerce and advertising companies will soon add support for AR preview.

Imagine buying a small toy on Taobao/JINGdong/Pinduoduo in the future. You can check the size and color first to see if it is what you want:

As you can imagine, if you use AR Quick Look, you won’t have to worry too much about whether to buy a 13-inch or 15-inch macbook Pro first. The only thing you can’t simulate at a glance is the size of the computer, the size of the screen, and even the effect of the display.

If you use a. Reality file, you can not only preview multiple virtual objects, but also add triggers to achieve more interaction with the user, music and sound effects.

All objects in the preview automatically support gestures, such as move, rotate, zoom, hover, etc. Trigger files can also support trigger animation, close to trigger animation, click trigger, etc.

Of course, there will be objects that don’t animate and interact and shouldn’t be scaled, like furniture. You can still use AR preview while disabling zooming.

features

AR Preview also has a feature almost tailor-made for ecommerce that ecommerce will love: canonical Web Page URL, which is used to link to product description pages when sharing product links: For example, we share a 3D object with others, and others see it and have no idea where it came from, how to buy it, how much it costs…

Wide range of support

In addition to the web integration and APP integration we just discussed, there are many Apple products added AR native support:

Even for macOS, Apple has a solution for you, so don’t worry if your device doesn’t support it:

The last

Apple has been investing heavily in AR in recent years, and it’s been an open secret that it’s even working on AR glasses.

Image of Apple glasses — from the web

But innovation has been a tough road, with rumors swirling online that Apple’s AR glasses project has hit a major setback and that 2021 is in doubt.

In recent years, apple’s domestic stereotypes have slowly disappeared: Apple is no longer cool, Apple is no longer innovative, and such voices are heard everywhere. ARKit just launched, and it’s amazing; But then it turned out that playing AR on a phone/tablet wasn’t good enough, and not only was ARKit limited, but Apple’s AR content ecosystem was in tattered shape.

In fact, this year’s ARKit 3 and RealityKit are the same as previous years. Although the technology has made great progress, the development threshold is high, the implementation effect is poor, and it cannot be converted into profits.

Apple is also under a lot of pressure this year: AR technology is still immature and unable to pick up the slack, users of old features are no longer fresh, and the Android camp has even gained a partial lead in many areas.

Without an ecosystem, it can’t attract developers and users; Without developers and users, where would the AR ecosystem come from? It seems to be a dead knot. The emergence of Reality Composer and AR Quick Look offers a glimmer of hope to break this impasse.

Reality Composer



AR Quick Look

At this point, Apple has finally formed a preliminary closed loop of the whole process from AR hardware to AR software, from AR content production to AR content consumption.

Therefore, I personally believe that both developers and enterprises will be able to upgrade their AR experiences tentatively from the second half of 2019. After all, with low cost and high yield, it doesn’t matter if there is no effect temporarily. As long as Apple continues to study AR, there is still great hope for the future.

The resources

Session 612 – Advances in AR Quick Look: Augmented Reality Assets in Safari for iOS With Augmented Quick Look Viewing a Model