Augmented Reality Preview

On devices that support it, the ip.labs Mobile SDK offers an augmented reality (AR) preview for wall décor products from within the editor. Users can virtually position their creation on a wall in their home and view it in its original size.

Feature Configuration

By default the AR feature for wall décor is activated. If you don’t want to offer it to your users (e.g. because you have no such products in your portfolio) you can deactivate it by setting the enableArForWallDecor feature toggle to false. Please check our customization docs for further details.

User Privacy Requirements

If you decide to offer the AR preview experience to your users, you have to adhere to Google’s User Privacy Requirements. This means you have to include an explanation like this in your app, e.g. on your privacy terms page:

This application runs on Google Play Services for AR (ARCore), which is provided by Google and governed by the Google Privacy Policy.

Please always check the linked page above the quote for the latest exact wording suggested by Google.

Hard- and Software Requirements

There are a few requirements a device has to meet in order for AR functionality to work properly:

• The device has to have a camera.
• The user must allow your app to access the camera (if the permission was not explicitly granted already, the user will be prompted to do so automatically).
• Google’s AR Core framework needs to be supported and installed (if it is not installed yet, installation from the Play Store will conveniently be offered to the user).
• You have to provide a cacheLocation during the Mobile SDK initialization.

Permission Setup

Required permission and feature usage for AR purposes must be declared in your app’s AndroidManifest.xml file. Please have a look at the following example which contains all relevants entries:

AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
  <!-- AR needs to access the user’s camera -->
  <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />

  <!-- Camera and AR usage should be marked as optional -->
  <uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.camera"
    android:required="false" />

  <uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.camera.ar"
    android:required="false" />

  <!-- other entries… -->

  <application>
    <!-- AR Core framework usage should be marked as optional as well -->
    <meta-data
      android:name="com.google.ar.core"
      android:value="optional" />

    <!-- other entries… -->
  </application>
</manifest>

We highly recommend to mark camera access, AR usage, and AR Core availability as optional like shown above. This way the Play Store will not hide your app from users that do not fully meet all criteria. In the end, the AR feature is totally optional and designing and ordering wall décor products does not depend on it to work at all. Even if a user decides to decline camera permission or AR Core installation after triggering the AR preview, the app will still handle it gracefully by informing about the AR experience not being available under these circumstances and switching back to the editor.

Usage of the AR Preview Feature

If everything is set up correctly and all requirements are met, users will see an additional view mode button in the editor below their wall décor product with the standard AR icon on it:

Tapping this button will open a tutorial dialog which explains all crucial steps to the user. After the dialog has been confirmed, the AR preview opens and further guides through the wall detection and picture placement process with helpful inline instruction bubbles.