World Tracking Best Practices

• Augmented Reality
• Mattercraft
• Tracking
• Tracking Types
• World Tracking

The following best practices will help you to implement World Tracking effectively in your experiences.

Creating an effective .zcomp

Creating an effective .zcomp will allow you to get the most out of your Mattercraft project. The following advice will go into more detail into how you may want to set up your .zcomp (Scene) for maximum benefit.

Developing anchor first

Be sure to add an initializing Layer to your WorldTracker component so that users know what and how they are supposed to acquire a surface in front of them.

Without this Layer Clip, it will be very difficult for users to access your experience.

Developing anchor first

When positioning content in your experience, you should position anchor-first, rather than content-first. This means that your tracked content should be as close to the center of the WorldTracker component as possible.

To move content along the x, y and z axes, you should start by manipulating the World Tracker’s WorldPlacementGroup component, not by positioning specific content (e.g. a mesh) x, y or z positions.

Positioning the content first could result in your content  ‘drifting’, or giving a somewhat unintentional parallax effect, which can appear as if content is unstable.

If it is a requirement to move content away from the center, try to keep it as centrally to to the tracker as possible.

Guiding the user

It is important to guide the user when they are using Augmented Reality experiences, as this may be a new technology for them. The below factors will aid you to allow users to get the maximum value with their time in your experience:

Provide clear instructions

Clearly communicate to users how they can interact with the AR experience and how to position the world tracked content correctly. This can be done on physical print, through on-screen instructions, tooltips, or an onboarding tutorial.

Some helpful instructions include:

• Make sure your device has a clear view of detectable planes
• Keep a steady, reduced phone movement

Consider the user’s environment

Different environmental factors can affect the experience. Try to control (or influence your user to control) factors such as the lighting or how much space the user has at the point of activation. For example, making sure that users are safe if they have to place content outside.

This article details World Tracking; which has an advanced understanding of the user's environment and thus requires an initialisation phase. If you do not require a complex understanding of the user's environment and desire users to place content without this initialisation phase, we'd recommend using Instant World Tracking.