Model the real world with the new ARKit library

Mapbox
maps for developers
2 min readAug 18, 2017

--

By: Lindsay Young

We’ve released a new library to help you add location based content to your ARKit based iOS applications.

The library helps port our iOS Maps SDK functionality of adding points to a map to an ARKit representation. This includes adding and removing annotations that model locations as well as providing views to visualize those locations. mapbox-arkit-ios offers an abstraction API that allows developers to simply specify where in the world the ARKit session started and where the points are that they want to add. We also provided a default visualization for each added point, but you can completely customize those views with SceneKit nodes or 3D models.

This is just the beginning, we plan to add additional functionality including:

  • An algorithm that will help the ARKit scene align itself to true north, to help accurately place locations
  • A more feature-rich API for callout views above the primary annotation view
  • A query API for interacting with the primary annotation view and its callout
  • Utilities for converting GeoJSON to point and line SceneKit nodes in the AR scene view
  • Built-in integration with Mapbox services and data layers like directions, building data, points of interest, and more

See what else is on the horizon in https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-arkit-ios/issues

We’re excited to work with developers to improve this new set of APIs. Share your apps, hacks, and weekend projects with us on Twitter using #BuiltWithMapbox.

--

--

mapping tools for developers + precise location data to change the way we explore the world