Summary
In this chapter, after a quick introduction to augmented reality, you immediately got started on your road to developing your own AR projects. You installed Unity via Unity Hub and learned the importance of tracking the different versions of Unity, as well as its projects and packages. You got a brief tour of using the Unity Editor, including some key concepts that are fundamental to 3D and AR.
You then set up your project and system software for AR development, including installing an XR plugin, the AR Foundation package, tools for Android or Xcode, and other items necessary to get things set up. Lastly, we created a minimal AR scene (including a quick point cloud prefab using a particle system component) and built the scene to verify it builds and runs on your target device.
Setting up your machine may be intricate and painful, but it's your entry ticket to Unity development, and everyone has to do it. If you got through this chapter with everything running, you are a hero!
In the next chapter, we'll begin to take a closer look at AR development using Unity and AR Foundation by creating a new AR scene, step by step, explaining each component as we go.