Start Augmented Reality App Development Like A True Professional Immediately With The Help of These 5 Tools: Augrealitypedia

5 of the Best Tools for Augmented Reality App Development (Image credit: sndrv)

Undoubtedly, you must have used various Augmented Reality Apps. And, I know you love the amazing Augmented reality experience that they provide to you. But, how about the idea of developing Augmented reality Apps by your own.

Yes! you read it correctly. Even if you don’t have the coding skills, you can still develop AR Apps by your own. And, there are a number of tools available to assist you. Today, I will discuss few user-friendly tools that you can use for developing your desired AR Apps.

Thus, just try any of the tools from below list and feel like a true professional in the domain of Augmented reality App Development.

5 of the Best Tools for Developing Augmented Reality Apps

Whether you want to develop Augmented Reality Apps for education, tourism, marketing or even for your entertainment, below tools will certainly help you to develop an interactive and realistic AR App. While some of them are completely free to use, few others offer their trial version to give a try.

So, let’s move ahead and start your journey with the below list of 5 Best Augmented Reality App Development tools.

Just Like a Pro, Make Your Hands Dirty With These 5 #AugmentedReality #AppDevelopmentTools Share on X

#1. Appy Pie’s AR/VR App Builder

Appy Pie, an app building platform enables you to develop Augmented reality apps by yourself. And, in Feb. 2017, this DIY (Do it Yourself) platform, has announced to offer AR & VR features with its app building capabilities.

Thus, you can develop your own AR apps by using this Augmented reality App development tool. And, yes!, you need not to be a coding expert for the same. You can simply use the drag-and-drop feature of this cloud based platform. It also offers a free trial version to experience its features.

The two features through which this AR/VR App Builder helps you to infuse Augmented reality capabilities to your AR App are:-

1. Image Recognition and Tracking:-

Using this inbuilt feature, you can easily design your own Marker-based Augmented reality Apps. Nevertheless to mention that, AR/VR App builder of Appy Pie has a great capability to recognize many real world objects.

Thus, you can easily develop an AR App with image recognition technology to scan and recognize almost any indoor and outdoor object. And, augmented (enhanced) version of the object will be pop up instantly on the screen of your mobile devices.

2. Location/Geo-Based Augmented reality:-

Another important feature in the Appy Pie’s AR/VR App builder is to infuse Location based features into your AR App. And, it enables you to develop Location-based Augmented reality Apps by your own. Thus, you can easily develop an Augmented reality App and integrate digital information ( e.g, details of a nearby restaurant, museum or theater) to it, based on the real-time location of your mobile.

Additionally, this AR/VR App builder has a Panoramic and 360 video viewer too. So, you can click and add panoramic or 360-degree video to your AR App being developed.

This will certainly provide an amazing Augmented reality experience to the users of your AR App. Moreover, the best part is that you can also publish your AR app in google play store or Apple store to monetize your efforts.

#2. ARToolKit

If you are a fond of open-source platform, ARToolKit would be a perfect Augmented Reality App development tool to use. In fact, according to Wikipedia “ARToolKit is a very widely used AR tracking library with over 160,000 downloads on its last public release in 2014″.

So, how ARToolKit helps in developing AR Apps? OK, as a user, you must have enjoyed many Augmented Reality Apps. These AR Apps scan real world objects with your mobile’s camera and infuse relevant virtual elements in the real-time.

But, do you know the challenge that you face during the development of such AR Apps? OK, let me tell you. One of the most challenging tasks for any AR App is to accurately track the user’s point of view with respect to the real world and that too in the real-time.

Here, ARToolKit solves this problem by using its intelligent computer vision algorithms. Using its capability to calculate the position and orientation of real camera with respect to AR-Marker (AR code), it helps any AR App to overlay the digital contents like image, animation or 3D models exactly at the position and orientation of AR Marker.

Do check below YouTube video to see the magic of an AR game developed using ARToolKit.

#3. Vuforia

Vuforia, another well-known SDK (software development kit) you can use for Augmented reality App development. This SDK allows you to create a standalone AR App.

Like ARToolKit, it also utilizes image recognition technology to identify tracker (AR-Marker) from the actual view being seen through device camera. Once  recognized, the AR App places the virtual object at the same position and orientation of the AR-Marker.

Furthermore, the capability of the image recognition of Vuforia is not limited to AR-Marker only rather it extends to marker-less targets such as bottles, cups, boxes or even texts. To develop an amazing Augmented reality App, you can also add virtual buttons to your AR App using Vuforia. If you are okay with Vuforia watermark, you can try this Augmented Reality App development tool freely.

Don’t forget to check below YouTube video to know the awesome utilization of Vuforia for AR App development.

#4. EasyAR

EasyAR is another well-known Augmented Reality App development tool. Like ARToolKit, It is also a free-to-use tool. But, before proceeding to develop Augmented reality apps, you have to do one-time free registration and generate the key. That’s all! Now, you are free to develop your own AR Apps.

In fact, due to the easy integration with any AR App, EasyAR is also considered as the best alternative of Vuforia. Unlike Vuforia (free version), there is no any watermark. Also, you can use the application without any limit.

Moreover, it also supports various platforms like Android/iOS/Windows/MacOS. The limitation in the current released version of EasyAR (1.3.1) is that it supports image recognition only.

But, according to EasyAR website, version 2.0 is about to release with more features like: –

• 3D object Recognition.
• Marker-less Augmented Reality (Markerless AR).
• Cloud-based database.
• Support for Smart-glasses (AR headset).
• App Cloud Packaging.

Do check below YouTube video to watch these features of EasyAR 2.0 in action.

update:- EasyAR Sense (SDK) 4.0 has released in Dec’2019.

#5. Wikitude SDK

Wikitude SDK is a commercial platform that you can use for your Augmented Reality App development. Various important features of Wikitude SDK can be listed out as below:-

1. Marker-less Tracking of indoor and outdoor object.
2. Inbuilt Image Recognition and tracking technology.
3. Importing of 3D models, created by various 3D modeling software.
4. Extended Tracking: – Unlike other platforms, It allows you to move the AR-marker beyond the visible range of the camera of smart-phone.
5. Support for Location-based AR Apps.

Using Wikitude SDK, you can develop AR Apps for Android/ iOS operating systems. Moreover, it also supports for many Augmented Reality smart-glasses.

Do check below YouTube video of the Wikitude Augmented Reality SDK.

Wrapping up

In summary, I can say that Augmented Reality App development is one of the most fascinating domain in the current scenario. And, if you wish to experiment with your creativity, a number of free and commercial tools are available in the market. Each one of the tool offers you a lot of functionality to design and develop AR Apps infused with amazing Augmented reality experience.

Moreover, you can also develop Marker-based or Location-based AR apps as per your choice and requirement. And, yes! don’t forget to publish your developed AR App to the Google Play store or Apple Store.

That’s all from my side. In the comment section, let me know what you have liked the most? And, If you like my post, do share it with your friends. Also, to keep updated about Augmented reality, don’t forget to subscribe to my website. Additionally, visit my Facebook page and do follow @Augrealitypedia on Twitter.

Summary

Article Name

Augmented Reality App Development- Start Like A Pro With These 5 Tools: ARP

Description

Immediately Start Developing Augmented Reality Apps Like A True Professional With The Help of Tools like ARToolKit, Vuforia, EasyAR.

Author

Satish Kumar

Publisher Name

Augrealitypedia

Publisher Logo