Chapter 2. Viewing the World

In this chapter, we will learn how to develop the first element of any mobile AR application: the view of the real world. To understand the concept of the view of the real world, we will take a look at the camera application you have installed on your mobile. Open any photo capture application (camera app) you have preinstalled on your android device, or you may have downloaded from the Google Play store (such as Camera Zoom FX, Vignette, and so on). What you can see on the viewfinder of the application is a real-time video stream captured by the camera and displayed on your screen.

If you move the device around while running the application, it seems like you were seeing the real world "through" the device. Actually, the camera seems to act like the eye of the device, perceiving the environment around you. This process is also used for mobile AR development to create a view of the real world. It's the concept of see-through video that we introduced in the previous...