To Augment Reality two main features of the Smartphone are being used: The CameraView and the ability to draw extra information in a graphic layer on top of the CameraView. With this the View for the User can be annotated with additional data on top of the camera signal. This method of Augmentation get’s really interesting when the data is connected to the exact geo position of the device, or when its position and direction can be used to add information on things surrounding the user in real life.
There are multiple SDK’s and methods in the market to help developers to achieve their goals in building an Augmentation-App, the Six below are the most promising.
Let’s see what they got to offer:
| Offering | iOS | Android | Windows Phone | HTML5 | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARLab – AR Browser | Yes | Yes | n/a | n/a | 199€ per platform |
| ARPA SDK | Yes | Yes | n/a | n/a | Auf Anfrage |
| DroidAR | n/a | Yes | n/a | n/a | Open Source |
| GART – Geo Augmented Reality Toolkit | n/a | n/a | Yes | n/a | Open source |
| Layar Geo SDK | Yes | Yes | n/a | n/a | 7500€ per annum |
| Wikitude SDK | Yes | Yes | n/a | Yes | Free (Watermarked), between 99 and 1499 € |
