UnityGeoAR: A geolocation Augmented Reality package for Unity3D

Abstract

Research interest in Augmented Reality (AR) has been steadily increasing in the past decades. However, while we see a wide range of publications implementing AR nowadays, it is often the case that the software is not included in the publication, leading to future research having to re-introduce similar custom AR solutions. We identify one such case, that of geolocated AR, which poses a deceptively complex issue, namely that of correctly aligning a virtual view with geo-referenced material around the user. We present here UnityGeoAR, a package for the widely used game engine Unity3D, that handles geolocation, reprojection, and AR view alignment through a minimal Application Programming Interface (API), in an effort to standardize geo-AR development and reduce development and implementation time for such a widely used aspect of AR.

Keywords

• Augmented Reality
• Geospatial
• Unity3D