A Survey on Development Tools for Mobile Augmented Reality

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) applications have become more popular beyond the research laboratory due to recent technological breakthroughs in computer hardware and mobile devices. Users are starting to interact with virtual content mixed with real environments at their offices, homes, and schools using their mobile phones. For this growing market, developers have first to decide the platform in which they will develop the application (e.g. Apple iOS or Android). Then they must decide whether start writing the application from scratch using only platform native tools, or using one of the available Software Development Kits (SDKs), or using high-level authoring tools for the chosen platform. Besides, developers have to face different AR related issues according to the application's requirements: markers, barcodes or general image tracking, geolocation, efficient rendering of 3D objects, and designing a robust GUI for the target devices. To help developers and researchers to start writing mobile AR applications, this survey identifies the main features of several freeware and commercial SDKs and authoring tools.