Vuforia is an SDK that allows building applications based on Augmented Reality; An application developed with Vuforia uses the device's screen as a "magic lens" where elements of the real world are intertwined with virtual elements (such as letters, images, etc.). As with Wikitude, the camera shows through the device screen views of the real world, combined with virtual objects such as: models, block of texts, images, etc.

What does Vuforia offer us?

An application developed with Vuforia offers the following experience:

• Text Recognition.
• Image Recognition.
• Robust tracking. (The fixed Target will not be lost so easily even when the device moves.)
• Quick Detection of Targets.
• Simultaneous detection and tracking of Targets.

Vuforia architecture

An application developed with Vuforia is composed of the following elements:

• Camera: The camera ensures that the image is captured and processed by the Tracker.
• Database: The device database is created using the Target Manage; either the local database or the cloud database stores a collection of Targets to be recognized by the Tracker.
• Target: They are used by the tracker (Tracker) to recognize a real world object; Targets can be of different types; Among the main ones we have:
  • Image Targets: Images; such as: photos, magazine pages, book cover, poster, cards, etc.
  • Word Targets: Textual elements that represent simple or compound words: Books, magazines, etc. There are two possible recognition modes: the whole word or by characters.
  • There are many others, in this article, we only name the main ones; You can find the rest at the following link: Create Targets.
  • Tracker: Analyzes the camera image and detects real world objects through the camera frames in order to find matches in the database.

The Vuforia Architecture can be seen in detail in the figure presented below:

Image 1: Data flow diagram of the Vuforia SDK in an application.

The device captures a scene (a live video) taken through the camera.
The Vuforia SDK creates a frame (a particular image within a succession of images) of the captured scene and converts the image captured by the camera to a different resolution to be correctly processed by the Tracker.
Vuforia SDK analyzes the image through the Tracker and looks for matches in the database, which is made up of Targets.
Then the app does "something"; this "something" is to render some virtual content (images, videos, models, etc.) on the device's screen, and thus create a mixed reality with virtual elements combined with the real elements, or what is known as Augmented Reality.

Development platforms

This is a great advantage that this SDK has, it is available for the most common Operating Systems on the market:

• windows
• linux
• Mac

Supported mobile platforms

The two most popular mobile platforms on the market:

• Android
• IOS

Of course, to develop for IOS, it is only possible on a Mac.

Conclusions

In this first installment of Vuforia, we are only dedicated to naming some of its most interesting features, in future articles we will delve deeper into each one of them and we will build our first application.