Bringing Virtual Staging into the Real World with ARCore by Google

ARConnect now available on Google Play & App Store

CAPTUR3D Editorial Team
May 18, 2021

We’re super excited to share this update on ARConnect for Google I/O in 2021.

ARConnect is the brand new offering from CAPTUR3D that allows you to bring Matterport spaces to life in Augmented Reality (AR).

ARConnect currently includes Virtual Staging — the ability to stage a Matterport space with 3D assets — with the roadmap looking ahead to spatial audio, and wayfinding.

This roadmap is made possible with new hero features announced at Google I/O, like ARCore Raw Depth API. This API offers the potential to improve measurement accuracy and alignment, bringing the real and virtual worlds closer than ever before. Google’s announcement is particularly exciting as ARConnect’s patented alignment process relies on measurement accuracy.

Previously users measured detected planes or flat areas - a slow process that didn’t permit much flexibility in larger spaces. However Raw Depth should give users complete access to the geometry of a space. This may make alignment more dynamic, and more accurate, so users can take spatial measurements with precision and speed.

This is all crucial to the realism of an AR experience. As we unlock layers of data, art and interactivity in spaces with ARConnect, we want users to have a sense of true immersion.

A big part of creating this immersion with Virtual Staging is occluding 3D assets behind real world geometry seamlessly. Thanks to the combined power of our existing meshes and Raw Depth, ARConnect users can navigate their space without crashing into objects.

It also means that in the future ARConnect will be able to dynamically detect obstacles and update wayfinding paths, so users can avoid hazards. This is important to us, as we hope ARConnect can become a valuable tool for accessibility support in future.

This isn’t the first time ARConnect has utilised Google’s features to enhance realism and alignment. ARCore Cloud Anchors are a big part of how ARConnect aligns with a real world space on both Android and iOS devices. As users move around, the persistent Cloud Anchors work diligently in the background to realign their device. This means that no matter if you leave a space, the alignment persists through time — so you can always come back and share your experience with others.

Combining the power of CAPTUR3D, ARConnect and Google to transform physical spaces into immersive experiences offers a lot of potentially groundbreaking advantages. For us it’s all about giving users the confidence to make smarter and faster decisions, so they can tap into a world of unlimited possibilities. We can’t wait to see where we go next.

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