Augmented Reality has become a new buzzword in the digital world, and it’s hard to find someone who has never heard of this advanced technology. AR is already applied in many industries, from gaming and e-commerce to education and healthcare, thanks to AR development companies.
Augmented reality is a huge and fast growing market. While major digital companies like Facebook, Google, and Apple are investing heavily in AR, it’s no wonder that many small businesses are following it.
Best Augmented Reality Tools for AR App Development
1. VUFORIA
Vuforia is a complete SDK and considered the best platform for AR app development. Vuforia supports the detection of various kinds of objects and offers the following features:
- Vuforia SDK supports 2D and 3D object recognition.
- Text recognition.
- Video playback, which can play the video when the target surface is detected.
- Local and cloud aware.
The Vuforia SDK is free to use, but the free version includes watermarks and features are limited. Even with a commercial license, you can use all features to build feature-rich AR apps or take advantage of AR development services.
2. KUDAN
Kudan is a powerful and popular augmented reality SDK that supports both the Android platform and Unity as well as iOS.
- Supports 2D and 3D image recognition and also supports SLAM.
The Kudan Augmented Reality SDK offers free and commercial licenses, but the free version always includes a watermark.
3. WIKITUDE
Wikitude is another powerful software development kit with the best AR features to help you build marker-based and location-based AR applications. In fact, this SDK has many important features, including:
- Geographic location supports local and cloud aware.
- Extended tracking.
- Instant tracking for virtual object display without environment mapping and markers.
Wikitude also supports other frameworks like Titanium, Xamarin, Cordova, and Appcelerator. This SDK only has a commercial license. The best way is to use the AR development service to take benefit of its powerful features.
4. ARTOOLKIT
ARToolKit is an open source software development kit that allows you to customize your app’s source code. Despite being an open source SDK, it has the following features:
- Integrate with GPS for location-based augmented reality app development.
- Simultaneous tracking.
- Automatic Camera Calibration Utility.
- Single and dual camera support.
In addition to these features, the biggest advantage of ARToolKit is that it can run on multiple platforms such as Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, and Linux.
ARToolKit also supports OpenSceneGraph and Unity.
There are a lot of useful free features, but it takes time to integrate and configure this SDK. Alternatively, you can use a professional AR development service.
5. AR Kit
During WWDC 2017, Apple released its own augmented reality SDK-AR kit. This AR kit is available in the iOS 11 update, and Apple has worked hard to provide an augmented reality experience on iOS.
The following are the most important features.
- Flat detection to scan the environment on the iPhone and iPad and detect the horizontal surface of the table, floor, etc.
- A visual inertial odometer that accurately tracks the environment by combining visual information available through the camera with advanced computer vision analysis.
- Estimate lighting—automatically analyze the amount of light in your environment and adjust the amount of light in your virtual objects.
Apple ARKit only works with the latest Apple A9 and A10 CPUs, so the AR feature will only work on devices manufactured after 2015.
Now that you know what augmented reality tools are available and what features they offer, you can find out which tool is right for augmented reality app development from the table above.
So decide what function you need for AR App Development, check out the correct Augmented Reality tool and then consider their price before choosing any Augmented Reality Tool. You can use a professional AR development service as well.
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