What is City Anchor
City Anchor is a feature that designates a “starting point” in STYLY’s AR scene, defining the position of the scene based on that point. This “anchor” links a specific location in the real world with AR content, allowing users to experience it when they visit that place. City Anchor works by obtaining latitude and longitude using Google Maps and setting that location information within the STYLY scene.
STYLY’s City Anchor uses Google’s VPS (Visual Positioning System). VPS is a technology that recognizes the surrounding environment through a camera to determine the location, utilizing visual information in addition to GPS for accurate positioning. This allows for a more precise AR experience tailored to the real-world terrain and buildings, without solely relying on GPS.
To accurately set occlusion in combination with the city, it’s necessary to use 3D city models such as PLATEAU to recreate real-world buildings and structures. This enables the creation of scenes where real objects naturally block (occlude) AR content.
Obtaining the Latitude and Longitude of the Starting Point for a STYLY Scene
Determining the Starting Point
Decide on the location that will serve as the starting point for the STYLY scene. This location is called the anchor.
The selection criteria are as follows:
- Ground (mandatory)
- City Anchor only works on the ground
- Do not set the starting point on the rooftop of a building or a pedestrian overpass
- Outdoors (mandatory)
- City Anchor only works outdoors
- Do not set the starting point inside a building
- Setting the starting point inside a building may cause assets added in STYLY Studio to become buried inside the structure, making the work very difficult
- The actual location where you want the AR experience to occur
- It is preferable to set the starting point at the location where the AR experience will actually take place.
- Example: A spot where the main subject building can be captured in AR
- If there are multiple AR experience points, the one most centrally located is preferred.
- Example: A spot where the main subject building can be captured in AR
- It is preferable to set the starting point at the location where the AR experience will actually take place.
Note that once an anchor is set, changing it later will require redoing all subsequent work.
Obtaining the Latitude and Longitude of the Anchor on Google Maps
On Google Maps, place the cursor over the location that will serve as the anchor and right-click. A context menu will appear as shown in the image below.
※ Quoted from: Google Maps
Clicking the numbers at the top will copy the values, which you can then paste into a text file, etc.
What gets pasted should be a comma-separated value like the one below. This is the latitude and longitude of the anchor. Please make a note of it.
35.691583375085166, 139.71016426600193
※ The above is the latitude and longitude of “Shinjuku 1-chome North Intersection.”
Latitude: 35.691583375085166
Longitude: 139.71016426600193
Creating a City Anchor-Compatible Scene in STYLY Studio
Access STYLY Studio and click the new scene button. Select the AR scene template.
Delete the AR Template Grid and Enable AR Occlusion assets.
Click the AssetSelector icon and select Function.
Select AR on City and place it in the scene.
Click the AssetSelector icon and select Function. Select City Anchor* and place it in the scene.
* The City Anchor asset is only displayed for Business/Enterprise (paid) plans or higher.
Enter the following values:
- Latitude: Enter the latitude of the anchor
- Longitude: Enter the longitude of the anchor
- Scene experience range radius
- Enter the radius of the scene experience range in meters.
- For example, if you enter 100.0, an error indicating you are outside the experience range will be displayed if you try to experience AR more than 100.0 meters away from the anchor.
Click ADD TO SCENE to add City Anchor to the scene.
Notes
Do not move the City Anchor once it has been placed in the scene.