Introducing Native AR

Our new Apple SceneKit SDK + React Native AR SDK

By: Adam Debreczeni

We’re launching two new AR SDKs at Locate, making it easier for everyone to experience location-based AR in their apps.

The new React Native AR SDK enables developers to quickly iterate and build cross-platform. With the new SceneKit SDK, iOS developers can use Apple’s native toolkit to build lightweight and deeply-integrated AR experiences.

React Native AR SDK

The React Native AR SDK is the first of its kind for React Native. Using Javascript and React components, React Native talks to the code at a native level on iOS and Android so you can build for the two platforms at once. The code can co-exist alongside native code, meaning only part of your app has to be React Native.

“Working with Mapbox’s new React Native AR SDK gave us a great toolkit to experiment with showcasing our POIs in a location-based AR experience, and explore the future of what POIs could look like.”-Peter Krasniqi, VP Global Enterprise & Business Development, Foursquare

With the React Native AR SDK, you can quickly iterate and use React Native’s “hot reloading” feature. If you make a change to an AR experience, just shake the phone to reload the app and see your change immediately — seconds not minutes. We built our app for Locate in React Native, and the new React Native AR SDK powers the AR features inside the app.

SceneKit SDK

The SceneKit SDK brings mapping to SceneKit for the very first time. Using Swift, adding our rich 3D terrain into your iOS app is easy. The SceneKit SDK only adds 500 kilobytes to the binary, which enables you to add AR maps to your application without a size penalty on the App Store.

The SDK also benefits from Apple’s toolchain and tight integration with ARKit. This makes the SDK instantly compatible with any future ARKit features and releases.

The team at Slopes, the iOS app for skiers and snowboarders, used our SceneKit SDK to pull detailed 3D trail guides into their app.

“Using the Mapbox SceneKit SDK enabled me to build a rich 3D location experience in Slopes. The SDK took care of the difficult and time consuming part of rendering and annotating complex terrain data.”-Curtis Herbert, Founder of Slopes

Maps for Unity

The new native AR SDKs compliment our Maps SDK for Unity, which is our most feature-rich SDK for like location-based games and headsets. Our latest release of the Maps for Unity SDK gives developers tools for easily using our POI data to procedurally place objects around the world with a few clicks or lines of code. Use the POI placement tool to turn Yosemite Valley into a sci-fi landscape by placing a bio-dome at every camp site in the park, or replace every Starbucks in the city with a game character.

Visit mapbox.com/ar to start adding immersive AR experiences to your app or game.

Adam DebreczeniAdam Debreczeni is a designer and engineer at Mapbox. He works on AR and emerging technology. Adam is passionate about…www.mapbox.com
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