ARCore provides two different SDKs for using Unity to develop AR apps for Android and iOS:
ARCore SDK for Unity: ARCore SDK for Unity is a standalone SDK that lets you access all of ARCore's features. This SDK is available as a
*.unitypackage, available from the ARCore Downloads page.ARCore Extensions for Unity: ARCore Extensions is a package that provides additional ARCore functionality that is designed to be used with Unity's AR Foundation. ARCore Extensions can be downloaded and installed from the Unity Package Manager.
Available features by development method
| Method of implementation | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feature | ARCore SDK for Unity (targeting Android) | ARCore Extensions for AR Foundation | ARCore SDK for Unity (targeting iOS) | |
| Plane Finding | Base AR Foundation APIs | Base AR Foundation APIs | ||
| CPU Image Access | Base AR Foundation APIs | Base AR Foundation APIs | ||
| Object Manipulation | ||||
| Basic Light Estimation | Base AR Foundation APIs | Base AR Foundation APIs | ||
| Local Anchors | Base AR Foundation APIs | Base AR Foundation APIs | ||
| AR Camera Background | Base AR Foundation APIs | Base AR Foundation APIs | ||
| GPU Texture Access | ||||
| Augmented faces | Base AR Foundation APIs | Base AR Foundation APIs | ||
| Cloud Anchors | With ARCore Extensions | |||
| Environmental HDR Lighting | ||||
| Augmented Images | Base AR Foundation APIs | Base AR Foundation APIs |
Next steps
To get started using ARCore Extensions, see the quickstart.
To get started using the ARCore SDK for Unity to build Android apps, see the Android quickstart, or to build iOS apps, see the iOS quickstart.