Google debuts ARCore 1.2 with Sceneform, Augmented Images, Android and iOS Cloud Anchors

At the Google I/O 2018 developer’s conference today, Daydream product manager Nathan Martz introduced ARCore 1.2, a new version of the company’s augmented reality software development kit for Android. The latest version of ARCore introduces three major new features — Sceneform, Augmented Images, and Cloud Anchors — and surprisingly adds limited support for certain iOS devices.

First up is Sceneform, a new SDK designed to help Java developers create scenes with ARCore, optimized for mobile, without the need to learn OpenGL. The goal with Sceneform is to leverage ARCore’s advanced 3D object and tracking capabilities within old and new Java apps.