Wallace Wang - Beginning ARKit for iPhone and iPad: Augmented Reality App Development for iOS

Wallace Wang

Beginning ARKit for iPhone and iPad Augmented Reality App Development for iOS

Wallace Wang

San Diego, CA, USA

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the books product page, located at www.apress.com/978-1-4842-4101-1 . For more detailed information, please visit http://www.apress.com/source-code .

ISBN 978-1-4842-4101-1 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-4102-8

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4102-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962490

Wallace Wang 2018

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This is book is dedicated to everyone who has an idea for an app but didnt know what to do first or how to get started. First, believe in your idea. Second, trust that you have intelligence to achieve your dream even if you dont know how youll get there. Third, keep learning and improving your skills all the time. Fourth, stay focused. Success will come one day as long as you persist and never give up on yourself.

Table of Contents

About the Author and About the Technical Reviewer

About the Author

Wallace Wang

has written dozens of computer books over the years, beginning with ancient MS-DOS programs like WordPerfect and Turbo Pascal, migrating to writing books on Windows programs like Visual Basic and Microsoft Office, and finally switching to Swift programming for Apple products like the Macintosh and iPhone.

When hes not helping people discover the joys of programming, he performs stand-up comedy and appears on two radio shows on KNSJ in San Diego ( http://knsj.org ) called Notes From the Underground (with Dane Henderson, Jody Taylor, and Kristen Yoder) and Laugh In Your Face Radio (with Chris Clobber, Sarah Burford, and Ikaika Patria).

He also writes a screenwriting blog called The 15 Minute Movie Method ( http://15minutemoviemethod.com ) and a blog about the latest cat news on the Internet called Cat Daily News ( http://catdailynews.com ).

About the Technical Reviewer

Wesley Matlock

is a published author of books about iOS technologies. He has more than 20 years of development experience in several different platforms. He first started doing mobile development on the Compaq iPaq in the early 2000s. Today, Wesley enjoys developing on the iOS platform and bringing new ideas to life for Major League Baseball in the Denver Metro area.

You may have heard of virtual reality (VR), but theres a similar innovation thats appearing on mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad thats called augmented reality (AR). Although they may rely on similar technology, virtual reality and augmented reality offer vastly different uses in everyday life.

Virtual reality works by forcing users to strap a device around their head like an alien facehugger. Such VR headsets completely isolate the user from his or her surroundings and immerses the user in a completely fictional world. NASA uses virtual reality to train astronauts to explore the surface of Mars, while American football teams are experimenting with virtual reality to train quarterbacks to re-experience plays without actually going out on a field and risking physical injury. By practicing skills in a virtual reality world, users can safely make mistakes and learn from them without any physical consequences.

The huge drawback with virtual reality is that to use it, you must be in a safe place such as in a home or office. Because VR headsets isolate you from your surroundings, using virtual reality essentially blindfolds you. You cant use virtual reality while driving, walking, or operating a vehicle of any kind. Because you need to wear a VR headset, you can only use virtual reality wherever you can safely stand or sit without worrying about interference from outside elements such as other people or moving vehicles. For that reason, virtual realitys uses are limited to fixed locations where users can remain safe while they immerse themselves in another world.

On the other hand, augmented reality is designed to interact with the world around you. Augmented reality lets you view the real world but with additional information overlaid over reality to help you better understand what youre looking at.

For example, a measuring cup is a simple version of augmented reality. By pouring liquid in a transparent cup with measurement units printed on the outside, you can accurately measure the amount of any liquid in the cup, as shown in Figure . Without the measurement units printed on the outside of the transparent cup, you would never know exactly how much liquid the cup contains.

Figure 1-1

A measuring cup is a simple version of augmented reality

Hunters use a similar type of augmented reality when aiming a rifle . The scope magnifies the view of whatever the hunter may be looking at, and crosshairs etched in the lens shows the hunter exactly where the rifles bullet will hit, as shown in Figure .