Mega Voxels is the only voxel editor that has a built in AR viewer that allows you to view a voxel model in augmented reality so that you can bring your creations to the real world. In this tutorial, we will show you how to view your voxel model or voxel scene in AR so that you can take a picture of it.
After you have created your own voxel model or scene, you may have heard about Augmented Reality and bringing digital assets into the real world. For example lets say you make the voxel dog from the tutorial and now you would like to display the voxel dog in the real world using AR. You may be asking, how do I view a voxel model in Augmented Reality using Mega Voxels? The good news is that Mega Voxels has a built-in tool for automatically loading in voxel models and scenes directly in the app so you
can view them in Augmented Reality without any other software or hardware. We’ll cover the steps on how to display your model in AR.
This tutorial supports Mega Voxels 1.7 or newer. If you need help installing Mega Voxels, view our previous tutorial How to Install Mega Voxels. There you can find a step by step tutorial on getting Mega Voxels running on your phone or tablet.
What is Augmented Reality
The term Augmented Reality, or AR, has become quite the buzzword in the past few years. Augmented Reality is the process of displaying digital content, such as 3D models, in the real world. In many cases the hardware or software running the AR application can detect and react to real life objects such as a floor or wall. When you create a voxel model in Mega Voxels, you are actually creating a digital 3D model. Using advanced SDKs Mega Voxels loads your models into AR so that you can view them and even take a picture of them in the real world.
Getting Started
First let’s begin by opening up the Mega Voxels app. For this tutorial we will use the dog voxel model that you create in the beginners tutorial for Mega Voxels. As always we are using this model for simplicity but feel free to use any voxel model that you would like to view in Augmented Reality.
Great! This is the model that will be used to view it in AR. We will now cover how to display your voxel model into the real world using AR.
How to View your Voxel Model in AR
To display your voxel model in AR we will actually go into a completely different tab then normal. First off tap on the tab at the bottom of the screen that says Play. When you do you should see a menu with several different modes like the one below. Select the option that says View in AR.
The next menu gives you the option on where you would like to select your model from. If you don’t have a voxel model you can grab one from the shop. However in this tutorial we want to select the voxel dog from our gallery. To do this we will tap on the My Gallery button.
On the next screen you will be presented with all the voxel scenes in your gallery. As we mentioned before we will select the voxel file that contains the dog.
Once you select the dog the AR initialization menu will appear. Tap the button that says View in AR to begin the initialization process.
If this is your first time using AR in the app both Apple iOS and Google Android will require you to give Mega Voxels permission to access the camera. The camera is required to run AR on your device. Tap OK to proceed.
Next your model with a blue plane will be displayed. Notice the percentage bar at the bottom. This bar is a representation of how well the device has detected surfaces from the real world. In order to display your model properly this bar needs to reach 100%. When it does you will see a button that says Place Model. Go ahead and tap this button to set your model in the real world.
Once you have set your model you can rotate it by dragging left and right. Also you can resize your model by pinching with your fingers. We rotated it slightly and increased the scale by pinching the model. Once you are happy with the result, tap the button with the camera icon at the bottom to take a picture.
Once you press the button the Share menu will automatically appear. This is how it looks on iOS, however you should see a very similar menu on Android. Basically this gives you options on where you would like to share your file to.
And that’s it! You can continue to modify the size and rotation and take more pictures if you like.
Wrap Up
Learning how to view a model in Augmented Reality is fast and easy with Mega Voxels. If you have any questions please ask below. Also if you found this tutorial helpful, please consider sharing.
