ARCore in unity vs Sceneform features/use cases?

Question

The way I understand it is that there are several environments that support ARCore and Unity and Sceneform SDK are some of the options.

I was wondering how are they different from each other besides one being in Java and the other being in C#? Why would someone choose one over the other aside from language preference?

Thank you

Geometric

Answer 1

Sceneform empowers Android developers to work with ARCore without learning 3D graphics and OpenGL. It includes a high-level scene graph API, realistic physically based renderer, an Android Studio plugin for importing, viewing, and building 3D assets, and easy integration into ARCore that makes it straightforward to build AR apps. Visit this video link of Google I/O '18.

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Whereas ARCore in Unity uses three key capabilities to integrate virtual content with the real world as seen through your phone's camera:

1. Motion tracking
2. Environmental understanding allows the phone to detect the size and location of all type of surfaces: horizontal, vertical and angled surfaces like the ground, a coffee table or walls.
3. Light estimation allows the phone to estimate the environment's current lighting conditions.

ARCore is Google’s platform for building augmented reality experiences. Using different APIs, ARCore enables your phone to sense its environment, understand the world and interact with information. Some of the APIs are available across Android and iOS to enable shared AR experiences.

Copyhold

Thank you! Just to clarify. Doesn't ARCore support the same three features(motion, environment, and light) when working with sceneform too? Am I right in understanding you if I say that Unity is to create scenes, while Sceneform is just for objects? – Geometric

ARCore supports three features(motion, environment, and light) you've mentioned across all ARCore SDK types (Java, Native, Unity, Unreal). ARCore Java sdk gives developers an easy option to integrate ARCore with the app. While if you want to edit some 3d content before build time it was almost impossible within Android Studio. With Sceneform SDK it became possible, and developers are getting "layout.xml-like" experience editing 3D content. Unity, in it's turn brings ARCore capabilities into powerful game engine that has 2D, 3D, animations, prefabs, scripting and much more. – Mintun