Has ARCore for Unreal been dropped ?

[alexandreMarie]

Hi everyone,

I saw that Unity uses the 1.9 release of ARCore where Unreal is still on 1.7 (https://github.com/google-ar-unreal/UnrealEngine/releases).

For the need of a project which requires only the AugmentedImage part, I also saw that you can now stabilize image tracking by creating a Global Anchor and I reaaaaly need that feature.

So just for asking if ARCore in Unreal is still updated.

Best regards everyone.

Alexandre

[bopangzz]

You should get all those features you talked about through the ARCore 1.9 APK automatically, even though Unreal is still on 1.7.

[VGuerreiro]

I think that's exactly the question - will ARCore be updated in UE4? and when? Looking through the roadmaps and after trying asking them on socials with no answers, things don't look very promising on this end...

[alexandreMarie]

Well that's a shame because I really need these featur explained in the official documentation :

Beginning with ARCore 1.9, you can use getTrackingMethod() to determine whether ARCore is currently tracking the image based on where the image is currently being detected in the camera view (FULL_TRACKING), or based on its most recently detected position in the world (LAST_KNOWN_POSE).

It's to know if I can use the currently tracked GetLocalToWorldTransform() to make an average location of my actor.

So @bopangzz do you know how to integrate this feature in the source code of the engine ?

Best regards,

Alexandre

[Invius]

Its sad to see this type of thing happenning! Now i see that unity is the only alternative...

[alexandreMarie]

Well Apple's ARKit seems to be still on race, so I will be switching over it.

But yeah due to the fact that you can combine Vuforia for image detection and ARCore to the device tracking part, it's a good alternative too.

[VGuerreiro]

So! I have news! During today's UE4 Twitch live stream I've asked them about ARCore updates and they've got some feedback from the team responsible for it! They've confirmed v1.7 to be implemented in the next ue4 release 4.23 and looks like the plan is to update it in a per UE4 release rate. So, not perfect but at least it's been worked on and not dead! :D

[elxpyder]

Hi, does anyone know if there was an update or something in android that break augmented images? i have a project that was working and now is not working anymore, same code that worked before is not working now, and i tried to update the code and no working either, the world tracking with AR Core is broken for me, it drift and there is no way to make it more stable, i am using UE4.21 compiled from source using the Git ARCore branch and testing in a Galaxy Note 9 with all the updates. Dones anyone is having the same issue? or have any tip to fix the issue? thanks!

[BryanChrisBrown]

Super excited to use the new image global anchor tool with unreal, in the mean time is there anyway to build this feature without the new 1.9 version?

I'm looking to sync the position my scene by pointing the camera at a poster, but most of the scene will be outside the frame of the image

[alexandreMarie]

@BryanChrisBrown For now you can't Unreal only have the features of the 1.7 implemented. You have to go on Unity which have the 1.9 features already implemented or just wait :/

[MatzeOGH]

Does anybody have new informations on the status of the UE4 ARCore branch?

[alexandreMarie]

Hi @MatzeOGH ,

Well, refering to https://trello.com/b/TTAVI7Ny/ue4-roadmap. The 1.7 will be integrated in the binary install of UE aaaaaand that's all.

We don't know if the 1.9 integration is on the pipes.

If you have the necessary funds, I advise you to switch to ARKit if you really needs world tracking features.

Hope this helps.

Alex

[VGuerreiro]

Guys I know it's far from ideal. But they said their plan is to update the plugin one version per engine (ue4) release. So I bet next ue4 release there should be an update for arcore, the next one should another update etc. But yeah we shall see. Also it would be nice if we bother epic with this in the forums etc. So that they get to see there are users that actually need/use it! 😀

[SirLouLou]

Hi,

It was 6 months ago that ARCore for Unreal Engine was last updated. Can we have some updates regarding this issue. Allot of people are waiting for answer. When will ARCore 1.9 will be released for UE4? @bopangzz can you please tell us more about this? Tnx!

[VGuerreiro]

UE4.23 updated to 1.7, but nothing on the roadmap for the next release, guess I'm switching to Unity -.-. I use UE4 for my portfolio stuff and loved it, was hoping I could make AR stuff with it, but apparently, it was a bad decision to go with UE4 for AR.

[Rob-Milliken]

From what I've seen the compiled release version of 4.23 now uses 1.9 (Open and look at the plug in - 4.22.3 used 1.6 (!) while 4.23 at this writing is using 1.9). They may not have demos or blueprints set up completely (if at all) but I think you'll see, for example, that the AugmentedImage demo, for example tracks the frame now in real time (you can lift, tilt the image and the frame will now follow well in real time where that was unsupported before).
I count myself as part of the issue here on the lack of upgrade, but remember, we're a community using open source software with the ARCore dev kit at our disposal. I know everyone's time is lacking, including my own, but we can write our own routines when this upgrades ourselves.

[wickerman123]

From what I've seen the compiled release version of 4.23 now uses 1.9 (Open and look at the plug in - 4.22.3 used 1.6 (!) while 4.23 at this writing is using 1.9). They may not have demos or blueprints set up completely (if at all) but I think you'll see, for example, that the AugmentedImage demo, for example tracks the frame now in real time (you can lift, tilt the image and the frame will now follow well in real time where that was unsupported before).
I count myself as part of the issue here on the lack of upgrade, but remember, we're a community using open source software with the ARCore dev kit at our disposal. I know everyone's time is lacking, including my own, but we can write our own routines when this upgrades ourselves.

Where are you getting 1.9 from? It uses 1.7 - which they clearly stated before release was going to be the case.

If you look at the plugin window it clearly says 1.7.0.

[Rob-Milliken]

Interesting. I should have been more succinct. I am not going by plugin labels or documentation but what is actually in the code - in this case an XML file which appears to direct the compile of 1.6 for 4.22.3 and 1.9 for 4.23 when I look at the plugin code in the respective engine version. I should iterate again that this is not from any branch on git but from what was released from Epic as available from the engine library launcher. It wouldn't surprise me if you snagged a more recent version of 4.22.3 than I had at the time that had 1.7. If I am misinterpreting this snippet of XML, I apologize, but that's how it appeared to me when I wrote the above.

I've screen shot for your convenience how I see this in Visual Studio 2017 and have snipped/pasted the 'about' part of the version number of the editor that corresponds to the engine I am using for easier reading and have done this for both engine versions to show you where I am getting this.

[SirLouLou]

My repost from another thread about this issue:

Wow, UE4 just launched version 2.24 and left the ARCore version at 1.7... We were waiting for 10 months... I had a little bit of hope for 2.24 but now I don't know it anymore. If they won't notify us on the future of ARCore in UE4 and when they will update it to the latest ARCore version, I think I will switch to Unity for the project that I'm working on...

[VGuerreiro]

I think they're re-writing everything to work with just OpenXR instead but both that and google to incorporate ARCore in the OpenXR will take too long for me.I already started to follow some tuts on Unity, I'm already making the switch to Unity for AR projects.

[Invius]

Epic is upgrading ARCore via OpenXR:
https://trello.com/c/1j2x7UQZ

[Invius]

Updated

[VGuerreiro]

Still a ways behind:

Unity has been quite in parallel with the official ARCore versions. Seems like UE4 was left behind. Meanwhile, I've moved to other technologies instead of actual game engines for mobile AR applications. Thanks for the update, it's nice that at least the UE4 implementation wasn't totally abandoned.