🤳Adding AR Capabilities

Learn how to add AR capabilities to your cloud-connected Flutter project.

Now that you are successfully able to stream 3D content into Flutter and know how to make custom adjustments, it's time to add AR capabilities to your project.

To add AR capabilities, we will integrate Unity as a library into our Flutter project.

Unity provides a framework purpose-built for AR development called AR Foundation. It allows you to build across multiple mobile and wearable AR devices, such as Android with ARCore and iOS with ARKit.

1. Repository Setup

Clone our open-source Flutter + Unity + AR Foundation + echo3D example project.

2. Console Setup

Add a 3D model to the console.

Create a new Unity project.

Install the echo3D Unity SDK.

Open the sample scene under echo3D/Examples/sample.unity.

Set the API key in the Inspector of the echo3D game object.

3. Unity Project Build Settings

Android

Open the Build Settings window by clicking File > Build Settings....

Select Android and click Switch Platform.

Check Export Project.

Open the Player Settings window by clicking Player Settings...

Configure the folowing:

• Other Settings > Rendering > Graphics APIs: OpenGLES3

• Other Settings > Configuration > Scripting Backends: IL2CPP

• Other Settings > Configuration > Target Architectures: ✔ ARMv7, ✔ ARM64

Notice what is your Minimum API Level. You may need it later.

Close the Player Settings window.

Click Add Open Scenes.

Click Export and save as unityExport.

iOS

Open the Build Settings window by clicking File > Build Settings....

Select iOS and click Switch Platform.

Click Add Open Scenes.

Click Export and save as unityProject.

4. Flutter Configuration

Import the project dependecies by running flutter pub get from your terminal

Android

Copy your unityExport folder to <your_flutter_project>/android/unityExport

Run flutter pub run flutter_unity:unity_export_transmogrify in your terminal

Open <your_flutter_project>/android/app/build.gradle and make sure your project minSdkVersion equals to the one you defined for your Unity Project as Minimum API Level.

Open <your_flutter_project>/android/build.gradle and, inside allprojects { repositories {} }, add the following:

flatDir {
    dirs "${project(':unityExport').projectDir}/libs"
}

so it will look something like this:

allprojects {
    repositories {
        google()
        jcenter()
        flatDir {
            dirs "${project(':unityExport').projectDir}/libs"
                }
    }
}

Open <your_flutter_project>/android/settings.gradle and add the following at the end of the file:include ':unityExport'

iOS

Copy your UnityProject folder to <your_flutter_project>/iOS/UnityProject

Open <your_flutter_project>/iOS/Runner.xcworkspace in Xcode

Go to File > Add Files to "Runner", and add <your_flutter_project>/ios/UnityProject/Unity-iPhone.xcodeproj

Select Unity-iPhone/Data, and, in the Inspectors pane, set the Target Membership to UnityFramework

Select Unity-iPhone, select PROJECT : Unity-iPhone, and, in the Build Settings tab, configure the following:

• Build Options > Enable Bitcode: No

• Linking > Other Linker Flags: -Wl,-U,_FlutterUnityPluginOnMessage

Select Runner, select TARGETS : Runner, and, in the General tab, configure the following:

• Frameworks, Libraries, and Embedded Content: UnityFramework.framework -> Embed & Sign

Open Runner/Runner/Info.plist, and configure the following:

Key	Type	Value
io.flutter.embedded_views_preview	Boolean	YES

5. Run

Open your main.dart file.

Find and replace the value <YOUR-PROJECT-KEY> with your API key and uncomment the code line.

Find and replace the value <YOUR-ENTRY-ID> with your model's entry ID and uncomment the code line.

Save the file and run the project on an phone.