The Ultimate Guide to Downloading and Using AR Foundation for Augmented Reality Development
How to Download AR Foundation
Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that enhances the real world with digital content, such as images, videos, sounds, or 3D models. AR can create immersive and interactive experiences that can be used for entertainment, education, business, and more.
download ar foundation
But how can you create your own AR apps? One of the easiest and most powerful ways is to use Unity, a popular game engine and development platform that supports multiple platforms and devices. And within Unity, you can use AR Foundation, a framework that allows you to build cross-platform AR apps with a unified workflow.
What is AR Foundation and why use it?
AR Foundation is an official Unity package that provides an interface for developing AR apps that can run on different devices, such as Android, iOS, Magic Leap, or HoloLens. It does not implement any AR features itself, but rather relies on separate plugin packages that provide platform-specific implementations.
The main advantage of using AR Foundation is that you can write your AR logic once and then deploy it to multiple platforms without making any additional changes. This saves you time and effort and ensures consistency across your app. You can also take advantage of features that are not yet available on some platforms by using hooks that are ready to go when they are enabled.
What are the benefits of AR Foundation?
Some of the benefits of using AR Foundation are:
It supports core features from different platforms, such as device tracking, plane detection, point clouds, anchors, light estimation, environment probes, face tracking, image tracking, object tracking, meshing, body tracking, collaborative participants, human segmentation, raycasting, pass-through video, session management, and occlusion.
It integrates with other Unity features and workflows, such as the Universal Render Pipeline (URP), the Entity Component System (ECS), or the XR Interaction Toolkit.
It enables you to create rich and diverse AR experiences with your existing Unity skills and assets.
It is compatible with Unity MARS (Mixed and Augmented Reality Studio), a tool that allows you to build intelligent AR apps that interact with the real world.
What are the requirements and supported platforms for AR Foundation?
To use AR Foundation in your project, you need:
How to download ar foundation for unity
Download ar foundation samples from github
Download ar foundation 4.1 documentation
Download ar foundation package manager
Download ar foundation xr plugin
Download ar foundation face tracking
Download ar foundation image tracking
Download ar foundation environment probes
Download ar foundation meshing
Download ar foundation body tracking
Download ar foundation collaborative sessions
Download ar foundation human segmentation
Download ar foundation occlusion
Download ar foundation raycasting
Download ar foundation pass-through video
Download ar foundation session management
Download ar foundation for android devices
Download ar foundation for ios devices
Download ar foundation for magic leap devices
Download ar foundation for hololens devices
Download ar foundation for cross-platform development
Download ar foundation tutorial for beginners
Download ar foundation best practices guide
Download ar foundation examples and demos
Download ar foundation source code and scripts
Download ar foundation assets and prefabs
Download ar foundation shaders and materials
Download ar foundation editor tools and extensions
Download ar foundation testing and debugging tools
Download ar foundation performance optimization tips
Download ar foundation user interface and input system
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Download ar foundation integration with unity mars
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A device that supports ARCore (for Android), ARKit (for iOS), Magic Leap (for Magic Leap), or Windows XR Plugin (for HoloLens).
A USB cable for connecting your device to your development machine.
Unity 2019.4.3f1 or later with Android Build Support or iOS Build Support.
The following table shows which parts of AR Foundation are relevant on specific platforms:
Feature
ARCore
ARKit
Magic Leap
HoloLens
Device tracking
Plane detection
Point clouds
Anchors
Light estimation
Environment probes
Face tracking
Image tracking
Object tracking
Meshing
Body tracking
Collaborative participants
Human segmentation
Raycasting
Pass-through video
Session management
Occlusion
How to install AR Foundation?
To install AR Foundation in your project, you need to follow these steps:
How to install the AR Foundation package from the Package Manager?
The AR Foundation package is available from the Unity Package Manager, which is a tool that allows you to manage and update the packages that you use in your project. To install the AR Foundation package, you need to:
Open your project in Unity and go to Window > Package Manager.
In the Package Manager window, select the Unity Registry tab and search for AR Foundation.
Select the AR Foundation package and click Install. The latest version of the package is 4.1.7 as of June 2023.
Wait for the installation to complete and close the Package Manager window.
How to install and enable platform-specific plugin packages?
The AR Foundation package does not include any platform-specific implementations of AR features. To enable those features, you need to install and enable additional plugin packages that provide support for each platform. The plugin packages are:
ARCore XR Plugin: for Android devices that support ARCore.
ARKit XR Plugin: for iOS devices that support ARKit.
Magic Leap XR Plugin: for Magic Leap devices.
Windows XR Plugin: for HoloLens devices.
To install and enable these plugin packages, you need to:
Open your project in Unity and go to Window > Package Manager.
In the Package Manager window, select the Unity Registry tab and search for the plugin package that corresponds to your target platform.
Select the plugin package and click Install. The latest versions of the plugin packages are 4.1.5 for ARCore XR Plugin, 4.1.7 for ARKit XR Plugin, 6.2.2 for Magic Leap XR Plugin, and 4.0.1 for Windows XR Plugin as of June 2023.
Wait for the installation to complete and close the Package Manager window.
Go to Edit > Project Settings > XR Plug-in Management and select your target platform from the left panel.
In the right panel, check the box next to the plugin package that you installed to enable it.
If you are targeting Android or iOS, you also need to configure some settings in the Player Settings window. Go to Edit > Project Settings > Player and select your target platform from the left panel.
In the right panel, under Other Settings, make sure that Multithreaded Rendering is enabled, Graphics APIs is set to OpenGLES3 or Vulkan (for Android) or Metal (for iOS), Minimum API Level is set to Android 7.0 (API Level 24) or higher (for Android) or iOS 11 or higher (for iOS), and Package Name or Bundle Identifier is set to a unique identifier for your app.
In the right panel, under XR Settings, make sure that Virtual Reality Supported is disabled.
In the right panel, under Resolution and Presentation, make sure that Def