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Common AR terminologies

Learn the common AR terminologies in Adobe Aero to help you get familiar with the terms associated with augmented reality.

Terms used in AR

action :

An action is the "do something" part of a behavior. For example, spin, bounce, and path are actions that an object can take.

anchor :

An indicated 'trackable' point/area that can be used to position AR content. 

ARkit :

Library for AR features provided on iOS devices by Apple.

behavior :

A behavior is an interactive property that can be added to an object in the scene. An object can have zero, one, or multiple behaviors attached. A behavior is made up of a trigger and an action.

bounding box :

A visualization of the extents of an object or selection of objects.

feature points :

Distinct recognizable features of an environment that can be automatically recognized by tracking engines. These are often corners and other joining edges where there is a detectable difference in color from their surroundings.

image anchor :

An image which is used for an AR tracking engine to recognize and attach content to. A good marker image has edges and other visual features. 

.REAL :

(.real) is the Aero document format.

surface :

A real world surface that is trackable by AR. Surfaces are often interpreted by AR apps from a collection of plane-aligned feature points. For example, the surface of a table.

surface anchor :

An anchor that is used to position and orient digital content on a trackable surface.

trigger :

A trigger is part of a behavior. A behavior is usually in a "waiting" state until the trigger tells it to "run".

What's next?

We've got you covered on the common terminologies associated with creating an AR experience. To know more about augmented reality, see Get started with Augmented Reality (AR)

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