CODEWITHSUNDEEP
unity-game-enginemapboxaugmented-reality
Hayls99
Hayls99

Reputation: 11

How to put markers in the real world with mapbox and unity when making an augmented reality app

I'm making an augmented reality app with Unity and Mapbox for both ios and android. I have data sets that I am using to make markers in the real world when someone uses the app. I collected json files and converted them to geojson files and then I made a custom map in Mapbox Studio with these 4 different geojson files. Basically I want to have the markers from the datasets I collected to show up in the real world. I am not sure how to get these markers to show up in the real world and not with building prefabs. Example of my custom app made in Mapbox. Each color shows a different category of markers. There are four categories.

Here is an example of what I am referring to.

In this image skeletons can show up in the real world.

Here is an example of what I am not referring to.

In this image droids are place in a map but it is not the real world. It is like Pokemon Go where the map is generated with location but you don't actually see the real world when you are playing.

I already have my Unity project set up and this is the final step, but I am just having issues getting it to show up in the real world. So far, tutorials only show on to get it to reflect something like Pokemon Go.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 907

Answers (1)

Michael Urvan
Michael Urvan

Reputation: 547

You will have one scene with a stationary Camera. Your code will monitor the MapBox data in Update(), constantly passing the current GPS position and receiving your list of markers/points of interest. You can simply randomly spawn skeletons in a sphere area (see https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Random-insideUnitSphere.html) around the Camera's transform position once you detect that the user's GPS position is in within a certain distance of the center of your point of interest. Keep track of that list, and destroy the skeletons once they leave the area - and have some way of making sure you only spawn them once for that area.

Your skeletons should have a NavMeshAgent, and you should generate a NavMesh onto the ARFoundation plane for them to walk on. In this case, the plane is probably dynamically created and you may need to use the dynamic NavMesh component https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/NavMeshComponents. If you tell the NavMeshAgent to go to a specific point it will walk to the closest point - so even though you get a random position in the sphere in 3D, the skeleton will move or spawn onto the nearest point so there is no need to figure out how to convert it to the 2D plane space.

Your AR view, both the tracking of the camera position/angle and the generation of a plane representing the ground, will be something generated by ARFoundation and it is simple to add the basic functionality. They have a prefab that already includes the camera and generates the plane for you. You can get ARFoundation via the Unity Package Manager. It will work with many different types of devices.

You should start with a cheap Android phone or tablet, even if you own an iPhone, because it's easier to load the APK and debug/develop your app via Android build.

This is a simplification. I recommend using Singletons, ScriptableObjects, Object Pooling, and other Unity paradigms and plenty of other things within Unity that would help you but as another user pointed out - you may want to spend time learning Unity, ARFoundation, MapBox, and ask more specific programming questions when you are ready.

Upvotes: 1

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