Tag: google

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Android App Development AR / VR

Augmented Reality Christmas Tree with Google ARCore Developer Preview 2 – in 5 Minutes

Christmas Tree with Google ARCore

We don’t have a Christmas tree in our apartment. But in today’s world, this is what Augmented Reality is for, right? Therefore, I decided to create an AR Christmas Tree in 5 minutes. This also gave me an opportunity to check out the new Google ARCore Developer Preview 2.

Christmas Tree 3D Model

First off, you need a 3D model of a Christmas tree. Two of the most accessible sources are Google Poly and Microsoft Remix 3D. Sticking to models created directly by Google and Microsoft, these two are the choices:

Christmas Tree by Poly by Google
Christmas Tree by Poly by Google
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Android App Development AR / VR Digital Healthcare

Real-Time Light Estimation with Google ARCore

ARCore: Light Estimation is an average of the overall image luminosity

ARCore has an excellent feature – light estimation. The ARCore SDK estimates the global lighting, which you can use as input for your own shaders to make the virtual objects fit in better with the captured real world. In this article, I’m taking a closer look at how the light estimation works in the current ARCore preview SDK.

Note: this article is based on the ARCore developer preview 1. Some details changed in the developer preview 2 – although the generic process is still similar.

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Android App Development AR / VR

Getting Started with Google ARCore, Part 2: Visualizing Planes & Placing Objects

Models of Brains (segmented from an an MRI) placed in the real world using Google ARCore

Following the basic project setup of the first part of this article, we now get to the fascinating details of the ARCore SDK. Learn how to find and visualize planes. Additionally, I’ll show how to instantiate objects and how to anchor them to the real world using Unity.

Finding Planes with ARCore

The ARCore example contains a simple script to visualize planes, point clouds and to place the Android mascot. We’ll create a shorter version of the script here.

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Android App Development AR / VR

Getting Started with Google ARCore, Part 1: Project Setup & ARCore SDK

ARCore - Plane Detection running on the Google Pixel 2

ARCore by Google is still in preview and only runs on a select few phones including the Google Pixel 2. In this article, I’m creating a demo app for ARCore using the ARCore SDK for Unity (Preview 1).

It’s following up on the blog post series where I segmented a 3D model of the brain from an MRI image. Instead of following these steps, you can download the final model used in this article for free from Google Poly.

ARCore vs Tango

Previously, the AR efforts of Google were focused on the Tango platform. It included additional hardware depth sensors for accurate recognition of the environment. Unfortunately, only two phones are commercially available equipped with the necessary hardware to run Tango – the Asus ZenFone AR and the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro.

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Android App Development AR / VR

Showing a 360° Photo in Google Daydream VR based on Unity, Part 2

360° Photo in the Google Daydream VR (2017) headset, Unity app running on the Google Pixel 2

In the first part of the article, we captured a 360° photo using a Samsung Gear 360 camera. Now, we’ll create a new Unity project for Android. Using the right shader and material, we can assign the cylindric projection to a Skybox. This is the perfect 360° photo viewer for Unity, which can then be easily deployed to a Google Daydream / Cardboard VR headset!

Loading the 360° Photo in Unity

The Skybox in Unity is the easiest way to show a 360° photo in VR. Note that 360° 2D and 3D video will be supported out-of-the-box in the upcoming Unity 2017.3 release, according to the current Unity roadmap.

For setting up a 360° panorama as a Skybox, the following guides are extremely helpful if you need further pointers: SimplyVR, Tales from the Rift. The instructions below outline all the necessary steps you need to create your own 360° photo viewer in Unity!

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Categories
Android App Development AR / VR

Showing a 360° Photo in Google Daydream VR based on Unity, Part 1

Stitched 360° Photo taken with the Samsung Gear 360 in full resolution

Capturing a 360° photo / video and viewing it in VR is one of the most immersive use cases. As the user is part of a captured real world, the virtual experience is the most life-like possible.

In this article, I will show how to capture a 360° photo using the new Samsung Gear 360 camera (2017 version), then load the photo into a Unity project for Google Daydream / Cardboard to view it in VR on an Android phone (in this case, the Google Pixel 2).

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Android App Development Bluetooth Beacons Windows

Video: Everything You Need To Know About Bluetooth 5 & Beacons

Bluetooth Beacon Session by Andreas Jakl
(c) www.annarauchenberger.com / Anna Rauchenberger – Wien, 05.04.2017 - Mobile Developer After-Work #14 // Creating Immersive Environments //

With the first Bluetooth 5 devices just released (first and foremost the Samsung Galaxy S8), Bluetooth Beacons like Apple iBeacon and Eddystone by Google gain a lot of potential. Increased range means future beacons will cover a much larger area, without increased power consumption. With the payload increase of beacon advertisement frames from 31 bytes to 255 bytes, the amount of information transmitted by beacons can substantially increase.

In my session about Bluetooth Beacons at the Mobile Developer After-Work #14: Creating Immersive Environments, I provided a short update about the latest news. Unfortunately, recording of the live session at the event failed. Therefore, I’ve re-recorded it – you will miss the live experience, but I did have a little more time for more detailed explanations of some important facts, so it’s well worth watching again even if you have been at the #mdaw14 Event!

The 45 min recording is now available on YouTube.

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Categories
Image Processing

20 – 30% Better JPEG compression from Google? My Test Results.

The blog post from Google sounds intriguing – 20% to 30% better JPEG image compression at the same visual quality through the Guetzli encoder. That has potential for a huge speed increase of websites.

While there are of course a lot of other better image formats around than JPEG (e.g., WebP or JPEG 2000), time has shown that it’s more or less impossible for them to gain any traction. It’s a pity, but on the other hand ensures that pretty much every device available on the market right now can load and show all websites.

Testing Guetzli!

To check the new Guetzli JPEG encoder out myself, I downloaded the binary executable of v1.0 and put it through some very quick tests.

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