ARDK 1.3.0 Release Notes 2022-03-31

What’s New

  • [Developer Tools] Support for image anchors in mock mode, using the MockImageAnchor component. See “Mock Mode” in the ARDK User Manual developer documentation for more details.

  • [Developer Tools] New flow for using mock environments to run AR sessions in the Unity Editor. See “New Mock Mode Process” below for details.

  • [Developer Tools] Unity 2019.4 will no longer be officially supported in ARDK 1.3. Unity has announced that 2019.4 is now legacy LTS and will reach the end of its support in spring 2022. More information here: https://unity3d.com/unity/qa/lts-releases.

Upgrade Guide

Use the following information when upgrading from ARDK 1.2 to ARDK 1.3

New Mock Mode Process

ARDK 1.3 has a new workflow for using ARDK Mock Mode. You now use and create mock environment prefabs, and Mock Mode automatically instantiates a specific mock environment in your scene when you run in the Unity editor. To use the new workflow:

  1. Create a prefab with the meshes of your environment and a MockSceneConfiguration component at the root (or use one provided in the ARDK Mock Environments package on the Lightship portal).

  2. In the ARDK > Virtual Studio window, go to the Mock tab and select a prefab from the dropdown. Click the refresh icon if you don’t see your mock prefab listed.

  3. Enter Play Mode, and the prefab will be automatically instantiated. A new layer will be automatically added to your project in order to render the mock environment correctly if it does not already exist.

Using Unity 2021 with M1 Macs

As of Unity 2021.1 (tech stream release) Unity has added support for Apple silicon M1 chipsets. While Unity 2021 versions are not officially supported yet by ARDK, we realize that Mac M1 users may prefer to use Unity 2021 as this version removes the need for applying the M1 workaround patch described at [https://community.lightship.dev/t/m1-support-workaround/661](https://community.lightsh ip.dev/t/m1-support-workaround/661). We do not know of any major ARDK + Unity 2021 compatibility issues at this time, but 2021 remains unsupported (officially) until we have further tested this version. We recommend using the officially supported 2020.3 LTS in most cases, but for M1 users using Unity 2021 may be preferred.

Improvements

  • [Context Awareness] General improvements and fixes for meshing memory usage and latency.

  • [Context Awareness] The Gameboard feature has been moved from an experimental feature in ARDK-Examples to an official ARDK extension.

  • [Context Awareness] Raw point cloud will now be sent from the remote device to the development machine in Virtual Studio Remote Mode.

Known Issues

  • [Developer Tools] Cannot use wireless Remote Mode because app says it’s connected immediately, so you cannot connect with the Unity Editor.

  • [Developer Tools] Cannot use USB Remote Mode on Android because camera feed will not display in the Unity Editor.

Bug Fixes

  • [Context Awareness] Fix with labels issue in plane classification example in ARDK-Examples.

  • [Context Awareness] Fix for depth point cloud being offset.

  • [Context Awareness] Fix for reducing CPU usage during meshing on LiDAR capable devices.

  • [Developer Tools] Fix for the MarkerSync example to have a fixed prefab for custom config provisioning.

  • [Developer Tools] Fix for the PongHLAPIDemo scene from referencing a non-existing prefab.

  • [Developer Platform] Fixed bug where ARSession would freeze on start on iOS devices.

Deprecations

  • [Context Awareness] IARFrame.Serialize() is now deprecated and will be removed in an upcoming ARDK release.

Released: March 31, 2022