What's the difference between ARKit and RealityKit?

Question

From developer.apple.com, it is described as follows,

ARKit: Integrate iOS device camera and motion features to produce augmented reality experiences in your app or game.

and

RealityKit: Simulate and render 3D content for use in your augmented reality apps.

As I understand, ARKit is AR SDK acts on object detection and tracking, RealityKit is rendering module.

In my project, I imported only RealityKit framework into Xcode for making the AR Application. Plus, I used Reality Composer for creating the experience attached to the image. Finally, my AR application can work completely.

However, I have 2 questions:

1. Is RealityKit an AR SDK?
2. Which part is responsible for detecting and tracking the image anchor?

Dunaville

Answer 1

RealityKit vs ARKit

The RealityKit's ARSession is based on the ARKit's AR session, but has its own add-ons that allow you to automate the tracking of several anchors' types. However, the difference between two is that RealityKit has engines for rendering, physics and animation. And do not forget that ARKit is umbrella containing SceneKit and SpriteKit.

Cruzeiro

Does the model entity represent the virtual objects on the anchor? – Dunaville

OK, I got it. (I meant Does the model entity represent the 3d model?) – Dunaville

Every ModelEntity has a ModelComponent which contains the geometry. And, yes, it's called a virtual object or a 3D model. – Cruzeiro

Answer 2

RealityKit is Apple’s 3D framework integrating virtual objects into the real world using the augmented reality framework ARKit which helps to find and track real-world surfaces and objects. All of this can be kick-started using Reality Composer Pro as an easy visual drag-and-drop way (think of Interface Builder for iOS/macOS apps) to create a scene before moving to code with RealityKit.

Jubbah