AR Foundation face mesh for creating custom assets - unity3d

I'm looking for either a 3D model or an image file over which I can apply my own custom graphical elements, such as eyeliner or lipstick.
In the ARCore docs, the solution to this issue is very well described. You can get either an FBX file or a PSD template, over which you place your own elements.
From what I can tell, the principle of ARCore and ARKit are very much the same - there's a standard face mesh which gets contorted to the shape of a detected face, however, I'm unable to find any such materials using Google.

Just use the same face model and use slightly larger copies of it for the makeup. No one is going to get close enough to see how thick its caked on, because all the polys would start disappearing anyway...

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How to grab the 2D views/textures from a 3D Object in Unity

I am working on a Projection Mapping Project and I am prototyping in Unity 3D. I have a cube like object with a 3D terrain and characters in it.
To recreate the 3D perspective and feel I am using two projectors which will project in a real world object which is exactly like the Unity Object. In order to do this I need to extract 2D views from the shape in Unity.
Is there an easy way to achieve this ?
Interesting project. It sounds like you would need multiple displays, one for each projector, each using a separate virtual camera in Unity, like documented there.
Not sure if I understood your concept correctly from the description above. If the spectator should be able to walk around the cube, onto which the rendered virtual scene should be projected, it would also be necessary to track a spectator's head/eyes to realize a convincing 3D effect. The virtual scene would need to be rendered from the matching point of view in virtual space (works for only one spectator). Otherwise the perspective would only be "right" from one single point in real space.
The effect would also only be convincing with stereo view, either by using shutter glasses or something similar. Shadows are another problem, when projecting onto the cube from outside the scene. By using only two projectors, you would also need to correct the perspective distortion, when projecting onto multiple sides of cube at the same time.
As an inspiration: There's also this fantastic experiment by Johnny Chung Lee demonstrating a head tracking technique using the Wii Remote, that might be useful in a projection mapping project like yours.
(In order to really solve this problem, it might be best to use AR glasses instead of conventional projectors, which have the projector built in, and use special projection surfaces that allow for multiple spectators at the same time (like CastAR). But I have no idea, if these devices are already on the market... - However, I see the appeal of a simple projection mapping without using special equipment. In that case it might be possible to get away from a realistic 3D scene, and use more experimental/abstract graphics, projected onto the cube...)

How to generate surface/plane around a real world Object (Like bottle) using Unity & ARCore?

I built an apk using the HelloAR scene (which is provided with ARcore package). The app is only detecting Horizontal surface like table and creates it's own semi-transparent plane over it. When I moved my phone around a bottle, the app again, only created a horizontal plane cutting through the bottle. I expected ARCore to create planes along the bottle as I move my phone around, like polygons in a mesh.
Another scenario is, I placed 2 books on the floor, and each of them have different thickness. But the HelloAR app creates only one semi-transparent horizontal surface over the thicker book, instead of creating two surfaces (one for each book).
What is going wrong here? How can I fix it and make the HelloAR app work more precisely? Please help.
Software: Unity v2018.2,
ARcore v1.11.0
ARCore generates an approximate point cloud using a soft movement of the device to identify the featured points, this points are detected by contrast in the different shapes, if you use your application in test mode in unity you can see how the points are placed in your empty scene.
Once the program has enough points at the "same height" (I don't know the exact precision), it generates the plane that you can see, but it won't detect planes separated by a difference of 5cm or even more distance.
If you want to know the approximate accuracy of the app, test it with unity and make a script to capture the generated points that have been used to generate the planes, then check the Y difference to see which is the tolerance distance.
Okay so Vuforia is currently one of the leading SDKs for augmented reality providing a wide area of detection options (Images, Ground, Point, 3D objects, ...)
So regarding your question about detecting a bottle I would most certainly use the 3D model detection feature. You can read the official docs here.
You need to first generate an approximate of the object in a 3d modeling software and the use their program to generate the detection model. Then you put this in Unity and setup the detection. (no coding needed)
I have some experience with this kind of detection. I used it to detect a large 2mx2m scale model of an electric vehicle. It works great, you can walk around it and it tracks it through and through. You can see a short official demo here
Hope it helped to explain this in short!

3D AR Markers with Project Tango

I'm working on a project for an exhibition where an AR scene is supposed to be layered on top of a 3D printed object. Visitors will be given a device with the application pre-installed. Various objects should be seen around / on top of the exhibit, so the precision of tracking is quite important.
We're using Unity to render the scene, this is not something that can be changed as we're already well into development. However, we're somewhat flexible on the technology we use to recognize the 3D object to position the AR camera.
So far we've been using Vuforia. The 3D target feature didn't scan our object very well, so we're resorting to printing 2D markers and placing them on the table that the exhibit sits on. The tracking is precise enough, the downside is that the scene disappears whenever the marker is lost, e.g. when the user tries to get a closer look at something.
Now we've recently gotten our hands on a Lenovo Phab 2 pro and are trying to figure out if Tango can improve on this solution. If I understand correctly, the advantage of Tango is that we can use its internal sensors and motion tracking to estimate its trajectory, so even when the marker is lost it will continue to render the scene very accurately, and then do some drift correction once the marker is reacquired. Unfortunately, I can't find any tutorials on how to localize the marker in the first place.
Has anyone used Tango for 3D marker tracking before? I had a look at the Area Learning example included in the Unity plugin, by letting it scan our exhibit and table in a mostly featureless room. It does recognize the object in the correct orientation even when it is moved to a different location, however the scene it always off by a few centimeters, which is not precise enough for our purposes. There is also a 2D marker detection API for Tango, but it looks like it only works with QR codes or AR tags (like this one), not arbitrary images like Vuforia.
Is what we're trying to achieve possible with Tango? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Option A) Sticking with Vuforia.
As Hristo points out, Your marker loss problem should be fixable with Extended Tracking. This sounds definitely worth testing.
Option B) Tango
Tango doesn't natively support other markers than the ARTags and QRCodes.
It also doesn't support the Area Learnt scene moving (much). If your 3DPrinted objects stayed stationary you could scan an ADF and should have good quality tracking. If all the objects stay still you should have a little but not too much drift.
However, if you are moving those 3D Printed objects, it will definitely throw that tracking off. So moving objects shouldn't be part of the scanned scene.
You could make an ADF Scan without the 3D objects present to track the users position, and then track the 3D printed objects with ARMarkers using Tangos ARMarker detection. (unsure - is that what you tried already?) . If that approach doesn't work, I think your only Tango option is to add more features/lighting etc.. to the space to make the tracking more solid.
Overall, Natural Feature tracking by Vuforia (or Marker tracking for robustness) sounds more suited to what I think your project is doing, as users will mostly be looking at the ARTag/NFT objects. However, if it's robustness is not up to scratch, Tango could provide a similar solution.

How to add a 3D Overlay for SteamVR

I am trying to use OpenVR Overlay API to overlay a 3d model over the top of another VR application.
I have successfully used this API, with some help from this HeadlessOverlayToolkit to overlay planes.
I have arranged 6 planes to make a 3d cube and can overlay that.
I am trying to figure out of there is a way to overlay actual 3d models, and if so how?
I see in the OpenVR docs it says the IVROverlay allows you to render 2d content through the compositor. However, surely if it is possible to construct 3d shapes (using 2d planes) then why wouldn't it be possible to overlay 3d models?
Any insight, experience or guidance here would be appreciated.
All the best,
Liam
It is possible. Create your overlay as usual, then call SetOverlayRenderModel. It takes a path to an .obj file as an argument. The only caveat is that for some reason you still need to provide a texture, otherwise the model will not appear, but it can be a transparent 1x1 one so that it is not visible - see this issue for details.
Note that currently it is impossible to add any dynamically generated mesh, you can only load from file. It is also impossible to do animations.
There appears to be no reporting of errors anywhere when SteamVR does not like your model even though the function is supposed to return EVROverlayError, it just won't appear. If this happens, double-check all paths and try to load the default controller models from C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SteamVR\resources\rendermodels\vr_controller_vive_1_5\vr_controller_vive_1_5.obj, because they are definitely correct. I had some problems loading models with no textures, so make sure your models are correctly textured and UV-mapped.

Tango Predefined Objects

I'm somewhat familiar with tango and unity. I have worked through the examples and can get them to work correctly. I have seen some people doing an AR type example where they have their custom objects in an area to interact with or another example would be directions where you follow a line to a destination.
The one thing I cannot figure out is how to precisely place a 3d object into a scene. How are people getting that data to place it within unity in the correct location? I ha e an area set up and the AR demo seems promising but I'm not placing objects with the click of a finger. What I am looking to do is when they walk by my 3d object will already be there and they can interact with it. Any ideas? I feel like I've been searching everywhere with little luck to an answer to this question.
In my project, I have a specific space the user will always be in - so I place things in the (single room) scene when I compile.
I Create an ADF using the provided apps, and then my app has a mode where it does the 3D Reconstruction and saves off the mesh.
I then load the Mesh into my Unity Scene (I have to rotate it by 180° in the Y axis because of how I am saving the .obj files)
You now have a guide letting you place objects exactly where you want them, and a nice environment to build up your scene.
I disable the mesh before I build. When tango localises, your unity stuff matches up with the tango world space.
If you want to place objects programatically, you can place them in scripts using Instantiate
I also sometimes have my app place markers with a touch, like in the examples, and record the positions to a file, which I then use to place objects specifically... But having a good mesh loaded into your scene is really the nicest way i've found.