Blog.

Blog02 – Setting Up Plane Detection & Point Cloud in AR Foundation

Jakub Platzek

Table of contents

  1. Project setup
  2. Plane detection
  3. Point Cloud

Project setup

As any other Unity project, the first step involved starting up Unity Hub and selecting AR Core as base for our new project. Opening of the project introduces us already to a few new elements that distinguish the AR project from the default Unity 3D project, that being AR Session Origin as well as AR Session GameObjects.

The AR Session can be considered as a representation of the AR scene itself and controlling its lifecycle. The AR Session Origin on the other hand represents an entity that converts the session space to Unity world space, ensuring proper projection of the camera in the real world to the position in the active scene.

Plane detection

If you have chosen AR Core as base of the project you should be already good to go, as it is set as the default enabled feature in the project. The only 2 required entities for this feature to work properly are AR Plane Manager component and ARPlane GameObject, which represents the plane that can be seen through camera.

Point Cloud

To enable Point Cloud feature in the Unity project, the first step would be adding an ARPointCloudManager component, which handles the recognition of feature points of the surrounding environment and AR Default Point Cloud GameObject. When it successfully recognizes an object in the environment, it displays a cluster of points composed of this GameObject.

Summary

In conclusion, setting up an AR Core Unity project is easier than ever as most of the features are already set up on the first start up or are just a few clicks away!