US software firm Unity has been lauded for its highly accessible game development and 3D rendering tools.
The company’s software has seen a rise in popularity as developers use the cross-platform engine to create independent games that introduced many industry trends.
Unity are at the core of many virtual reality (VR) games, notably titles featured on Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2.
The San Francisco-based game engine is not hardware-intensive and has found a home on the Quest 2, which has generally lower processing power than other PC tethered headsets.
What Does Unity Mars Offer?
Unity Mars offers a enterprise-grade creative workflow for augmented reality (AR) developers to build ‘intelligent’ applications.
The creative workflow uses environment and sensor data to aid in the development of context-aware AR applications.
Unity Mars will also work within any environment and greatly decreases testing times as a flexible production pipeline.
The purpose-built software simplifies and redefines AR production by allowing all real-time designing and testing to take place within the Unity Editor.
The Unity MARS Companion application for iOS and Android, relays data from the Unity Mars editor, was recently released in beta.
Developers can also use their smartphone cameras to easily capture real-life AR data by scanning rooms and recording video. Users can also send bug fixes and tweaks such as lighting errors to Unity Mars.
Unity has also designed the AR Foundation, a framework which facilitates cross platform delivery of AR applications built on the platform.
It also backs cross-delivery for Google’s ARCore, Apple’s ARKit, Magic Leap, and Microsoft’s Hololens 2, replacing the arduous process of rebuilding software for multiple platforms with simple updates, allowing firms that do not have in-house technology or knowledge to receive access to AR technologies.
In a recent webinar with XR technical expert Antonia Forester, it was shown how in-house developers at major companies such as Wal-Mart used Unity Mars.
The news comes amid recent reports of Apple pushing its own 3D capture tool for use with macOS, and it remains unclear whether Unity will continue to support Apple’s ARkit in the future.
But despite competition from Apple, Unity has gained an impressive AR foothold and foundation that will future-proof the company and its customer base.
