Hi,

@medabit, what type of scanning are you talking about, in this sentence:

Quote:

We've found that in areas with low detail surfaces we were able to improve the experience by taking additional time to scan the environment before performing the first hit test.

Is it possible to scan the environment before using the app and use that information (let's say, a 3D model of the environment) inside Unity to help the tracking process when using the ground plane feature?

If so, how?

The reason why I am asking this is because I'm using the ground plane feature outdoors and I'm having drifting problems, other times it takes too long to detect the ground to make the hit. Since I would like to test this app it in a specific space that will not change, it seems to be a good idea to scan it a priori, in order to improve the ground plane detection and the 6DoF navigation.

Thanks in advance!

Anabela

hi apoor!

1. if your phone doesnt support ARkit or ARcore this is probably the expected behaviour, apple and google have spent time carefully clock-syncing the camera to gyroscope so that this doesnt happen on their platforms, on others vuforia will just try its best

2. you should bake an 'ambient occulusion' shadow that will help

3. 4. yeah, again you might find ARkit/core is better here

5. be good if you can post an image of your scene, does it have good 'texture' with unique parts?

6.. not sure

thanks!

tom

Hi ,

I am totally new to the app. I have developed an AR app using the Ground Plane SDK and tested in on Pixel 2 XL. I have landed up in few problems and want assistance.

1. The 3D model once placed keeps on shaking slightly. I have tested the app on the phone with a tripod fixed to it to ensure 0 phone shaking but still the object shakes.

2.The 3D model doent give the real feel that its exactly on the ground or attached to the ground. IT looks like its not on the floor .How can I achieve that functionality?

3. Rotating the camera and coming back to the image makes the image disappear at times

4.Rotating the camera and coming back to the object makes the object lose the ground where it was placed earlier. It starts floating in the air. This is my MAJOR concern. How can this be fixed? I am developing it for Android using Unity and would like to have an iOS version as well. This is killing my app. Is there a resolution drafted for this?

5.There are times when the app is not able to detect the ground.The square is not shown on the ground so the app doesnt work. I have ensured that I have a descent surface with ample lightning and free spaces but somehow it doesnt help.

6.I have noticed that some devices that are compatible will not show the square box for ground detection while others do and this if for the same app package. I want to know what is causing this difference?

Kindly help.

Hi

sorry for the delay, Ive been on summer holidays

this is our top bug in our app now, so Im going to be taking a look at this today.

I've gone and made a clean project/scene in unity from scratch, and that seems to work better in that VIO algorithm learns during the session, I can see the moment when the algorithm has its 'ah ha' moment and finds the correct scale and position if I move the phone around a lot.

but our legacy code doesnt do this in VIO mode and we are stuck with the initial 'track' solution, it doesnt get better.

strangely the legacy code does run ARkit devices nice.

What Im going to try today is ripping out all our old vuforia code from our app and try and start it again from fresh see if that helps

best

tom

Hello,

tompainter wrote:

I think I have 2 separate issues here

1. the S7 doesnt run the groundplane with ARcore with Vuforia fusion, but will run ARcore if I implement it natively into unity (i.e. without vuforia ground plane?)

Can you provide the exact model number you're observing this on?

Settings->About phone/device->Model number

tompainter wrote:

2. my S7 running Vuforia groundplane in VIO mode provides a poor result in moderate/good conditions (where my iphoneX with ARcore running vuforia fusion's groundplane works great)

but I'm sure from memory it didnt used to be this bad.

Im wondering if an update has affected it.

Of course, any update opens the possibility for introducing regressions. If you have an example screen recording that shows the environment and Vuforia's behavior I can take a closer look.

tompainter wrote:

About your 'take extra time to scan before first hit test' do you have any recommendations how I would get our non-technical users to do this? I'd like our app to be for people who never used AR before. perhaps there is a way to adjust the scanning threshold or something so that we dont offer them to place the object until we are more confident we have a good scan?

In my opinion, this is all about elements of instructional UX. Difficult for me to speculate on how to best do this in your app, but you can see elements of it in our Ground Plane samples (for example, the reticle).

Thanks,

Vuforia Engine Support

Hi Medabit thanks for getting back to me

I think I have 2 separate issues here

1. the S7 doesnt run the groundplane with ARcore with Vuforia fusion, but will run ARcore if I implement it natively into unity (i.e. without vuforia ground plane?)

2. my S7 running Vuforia groundplane in VIO mode provides a poor result in moderate/good conditions (where my iphoneX with ARcore running vuforia fusion's groundplane works great)

but I'm sure from memory it didnt used to be this bad.

Im wondering if an update has affected it.

About your 'take extra time to scan before first hit test' do you have any recommendations how I would get our non-technical users to do this? I'd like our app to be for people who never used AR before. perhaps there is a way to adjust the scanning threshold or something so that we dont offer them to place the object until we are more confident we have a good scan?

cheers

Tom

Hello @tompainter,

tompainter wrote:

@medabit ARcore supports S7 but Vuforia groundplane does not?

https://library.vuforia.com/articles/Solution/vuforia-fusion-supported-devices.html

i can confirm my S7 runs 7.2.23 in VIO mode

I think there may be a disconnect here as the linked page shows the S7 models that have Ground Plane feature support. It is important to note that these are Vuforia's VIO supported devices - they do not represent devices that support ARCore.

Due to the nature of the technology (and Android device fragmentation), Ground Plane may not be able to provide 6DoF tracking in all environments. This article includes some information for an ideal Ground Plane environment: https://library.vuforia.com/articles/Training/ground-plane-guide.html

Specifically, the following is relevant to this issue:

Ground Plane utilizes images from the device camera to understand the basic geometry of your environment. Therefore it is necessary to stage Ground Plane experiences in settings that enable the camera to accurately capture the details of the surroundings.

Here are some basic recommendations when evaluating performance:

• Stable lighting conditions
• Moderate lighting - not too bright or too dark
• Avoid glare and dark shadows
• Surface details help to reveal geometry and improve accuracy and performance

We've found that in areas with low detail surfaces we were able to improve the experience by taking additional time to scan the environment before performing the first hit test. While not guaranteed to work, I was able to perform 6DoF/positional tracking in a wide variety of environments such as low detail carpet, tiles, and pavement. The basic thought is that the more information the system has from environment scanning (floors, table tops, etc.), the more likely you are to gain a 6DoF pose.

Thanks,

Vuforia Engine Support

emorling wrote:

According to documentation the 7.2 would improve extended tracking. If you are using that?

I think the OP and everyone in the thread is talking about groundplane, Extended tracking is for imageTargets right?

@medabit ARcore supports S7 but Vuforia groundplane does not?

https://library.vuforia.com/articles/Solution/vuforia-fusion-supported-devices.html

i can confirm my S7 runs 7.2.23 in VIO mode.

Anyone have any ideas about my problem below please ?

Hello,

Agree with @emorling that SDK 7.2 introduces improvements to Ground Plane tracking. Specifically, Vuforia 7.2 supports ARCore devices:

https://library.vuforia.com/content/vuforia-library/en/articles/Solution/arcore-with-vuforia.html

I see that ARCore now supports most models of the S7: https://developers.google.com/ar/discover/supported-devices

Thanks,

Vuforia Engine Support

According to documentation the 7.2 would improve extended tracking. If you are using that?

Hi

Im having these problems too

I have the 7.2.23 vuforia running in unity 2018.1.9f1

I can query fusion_provider (thanks for the update there very useful) so I know that....

> my iphoneX runs vuforia groundplane using ARkit, it works great. absolutely rock solid tracking.

> my samsung S7 runs vuforia VIO for the groundplane, it works pretty bad, it doesnt track the ground at all, scale is different

Ive tried interior and exterior scenes to see if lighting is the problem but it doesnt see to be it

I have attached videos showing the problem, i hope someone can help

best

Tom

Primarily iPad Air 2, but also iPhone 6.

Glen

What devices are you testing on? 

Hi Strasza,

We are still seeing issues with augmentations drifting, jittering, or jumping around in our ground plane based app on iOS. We are currently using 7.0.47, would updating to 7.2 improve the tracking? You mentioned the possibility of tracking quality information being available in a future release, is that available yet by any chance?

Thanks!

Glen

I am still dealing with this issue. I will send a video clip, or a link to one, thanks.

Glen

You can private message me a video/screenshot of what you are experiencing if you are not comfortable sharing it publicly.

Thanks,

Vuforia Support

Is there someone I can send a link to the files showing the screen captures of what we are experiencing?

Hello Glen,

Due to the nature of the technology, Ground Plane may not be able to provide 6DoF tracking in all environments. This article includes some information for an ideal Ground Plane environment: https://library.vuforia.com/articles/Training/ground-plane-guide.html



Specifically, the following is relevant to this issue:

Ground Plane utilizes images from the device camera to understand the basic geometry of your environment. Therefore it is necessary to stage Ground Plane experiences in settings that enable the camera to accurately capture the details of the surroundings.

Recommendations:

• Stable lighting conditions

• Moderate lighting - not too bright or too dark

• Avoid glare and dark shadows

• Surface details help to reveal geometry and improve accuracy and performance





Doing my own experiments, I found that in areas with low detail surfaces I was able to improve the experience by taking additional time to scan the environment before performing the first hit test. While not guaranteed to work, I was able to 6DoF/positional tracking in a wide variety of environments such as low detail carpet, tiles, and pavement.



The basic thought is that the more information the system has from environment scanning (floors, table tops, etc.), the more likely you are to gain a 6DoF pose.



The Ground Plane feature will continue to improve with future Vuforia releases. APIs that provide information on the tracking quality are coming in the future. These can be used to determine the quality of the area you are scanning and allow you to advise the user of what steps they can take to improve their experience.

Thanks,

Vuforia Support