When it comes to learning the library has always played a strong role, whether it is a collection of books, papers, periodicals or even a collection of software. And with learning how to develop for augmented reality (AR) very much in the mind of professionals and amateurs alike at the moment, with the release of both Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore, Sketchfab have stepped up to bring their impressive library of assets to the AR audience.
Announced today, the Sketchfab app has been updated to support ARKit meaning users developing AR applications will have access to nearly two million models that they didn’t have 24 hours ago. Sketchfab is, to quote the company themselves, now “the largest AR library on the planet”.
“Mobile AR lets you navigate 3D content in a much more natural and intuitive way than a 2D screen.” Explains Alban Denoyel, Sketchfab’s CoFounder and CEO. “You can move around any object or scene with six degrees of freedom (6DOF), just like you would in real life, or in VR, but without the limitations of either. It’s really a new medium in that sense. AR also provides a great way to get the sense of scale of a virtual thing, which is very hard to do without the additional context provided by mixed reality.”
Sketchfab’s VR model viewer was first released back in July 2014 and less than a year later the firm raised seven million dollars in funding. Whilst there is no indication of ARCore support yet it is quite likely just a matter of time as Sketchfab brought their 3D VR models to both Android and iOS back at the beginning of July this year as well as introduced sound support to the platform at roughly the same time.
As always should there be any further developments VRFocus will keep you up to date with further news reports and features.
via Mint VR