Niantic Inc., the developer of the popular augmented reality game “Pokemon Go” and the Lightship AR platform, today announced the newest version of its augmented reality developer toolkit, Lightship ARDK 3.0, which adds Unity support, new meshing features and easier multiplayer support.

According to Niantic, this release represents the most comprehensive set of tools and services for AR that provides advanced augmented reality for devices that do not have lidar, or light detection and ranging, such as everyday smartphones and tablets.

Augmented reality, or AR, works by placing virtual objects over what people can see when they use devices such as mobile phones or smartglasses that hover in place that appear to be part of the world. Using Lightship, developers can program these objects to interact with the world and people as characters in games, act as advertisements, virtual storefronts, websites and information kiosks.

The platform uses location-based technology that can identify local spaces that allows developers to easily track and place objects using visual and mapping positioning. This means that when they develop a game or an application, the app can always keep track of a virtual object or element wherever it is in the world. Now with support for the Unity graphics and game engine, and cross-platform support for Android and iOS devices, developers can reach even more users.

“Lightship 3.0 is the most complete set of advanced augmented reality tools and services making it easy to work with and easy to transform the real world,” said Brian McClendon, senior vice president of engineering and business lead for Niantic platforms. “Lightship is ideal for Unity developers who want to add location AR and visual AR features to their existing games and applications, and the perfect starting point for anyone who wants to build entirely new real-world mobile projects from the ground up.”

At the center of the update is a capability called multiplayer co-localization, which uses the Lightship Visual Positioning System, or VPS, to allow for users to quickly join shared AR experiences. With VPS, there is no need to use a Quick Response code to activate an AR app, a user merely needs to point their phone at a location that has been scanned into VPS and they can easily join a multiplayer session and they will be integrated into an experience automatically.

It does this with a technology called “meshing,” which can produce high-quality 3D simulations of the environment based on camera imagery — even on devices without special sensors. Meshing is a top feature for AR applications because it can be used to help determine the range and contours of objects in the real world, helping provide the best experience when they shift as the viewer changes positions. That way virtual objects will correctly hide behind things like a tree, or a couch or a wall when the viewer moves.

Niantic calls this “bringing the spatial computing to the real world” because AR apps no longer rely on codes or specialized symbols to recognize where they are in the world. They can simply use the world itself as it is.

For developers, Lightship 3.0 also adds a greater number of what is called semantic segment classes that they can separate for their app to understand the environment. A semantic segment is something such as the difference between the sky, the ground, buildings, water, grass and other objects. According to Niantic, there are over 20 different classes now available for AR apps to track that will make experiences feel more natural.

Lightship 3.0 was first launched in beta mode in June but is now available in general availability for all developers for free with the newest updates at Niantic’s developer portal today.

Image: Niantic