Googles persistent ‘Cloud Anchors’ feature is now widely available for Android, iOS and Unity mobile developers as part of ARCore version 1.20. Cloud Anchors, for those unfamiliar with the technology, allows developers to tie augmented reality (AR) objects to real-world locations.
Google first showed off Cloud Anchors at its I/O 2018 developer conference. The idea is to help build collaborative AR apps and games with persistent objects. Previously, AR experiences were only good for a single session and would disappear after users closed the app or game.
Several apps already support Cloud Anchors. That includes ‘SJ Labs,’ an app for helping people navigate Central Station in Stockholm, Sweden, ‘Mark,’ which allows you to leave AR messages in real-world locations for others to find and ‘Changdeok ARirang,’ an app that can guide visitors around Changdeokgung Palace in South Korea.
Along with the wider availability of Cloud Anchors, Google is leveraging other services to make the functionality more discoverable. For example, Earth Cloud Anchors leverages Google’s global localization tech, which powers Live View directions in Google Maps, to guide people to AR content that’s tied to a physical location.
I expect that other AR games and apps will begin using Cloud Anchors, especially ones that operate with real-world locations. For example, games with a similar premise to Pokémon Go could make use of Cloud Anchors for attaching in-game AR sites to real-world locales. We’ll also likely see more creative uses of the tech as well.
Source: Google Via: 9to5Google
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