Get started with Stardust Studio (online editor)
Detailed instructions for non-technical users on how to use the Stardust studio to create content remotely and set up your navigation targets.
For Unity developers, the technical documentation should be enough and can be found here.
AR-cloud, spatial computing, digital twin, Metaverse, etc
Many terms are referring to roughly the same idea, mainly the switch from 2D to 3D interfaces. If 3D technologies haven been used by some industries for a long time — for example in architecture — the recent developments in phone computing power, associated with globally available cloud infrastructure and good bandwidth, are now allowing almost any smartphone user to try 3D experiences, may they be in form of product visualization, face filter or game.
If anyone can try 3D experiences, building them is way harder. Mastering the complete creation of an entire AR experience, yet along an AR game, is today only reserved to few professionals. However, we hope that this simplified editor should give you a good sense of what 3D professionals, such as our team and our partners, could build to augment your physical space.
Good luck!
Stardust Studio: dashboard and editor
If you’re registered your account at https://stardust.neogoma.com/register and verified your email address, you should be able to access the dashboard, a central piece of our platform that allows you to manage your maps, but also your 3D content. As a non-developer, there’s a low probability that you’ll want to check your profile (developer token or mapping limits), technical documentation or even user list (user here refers to different SDK users). So let’s just focus on Map list and Object list for now.
On the navigation bar, click on MAP LIST to display your maps. As we’ve seen on the step-by-step tutorial, only maps that have been trained (therefore marked with a full icon “ready”) can be used. Here is also where you can:
- Rename your maps. Just click on the blue pen icon and write a new name
- Check if your usage tier still allows you to create new maps or update existing maps with more pictures
- Delete existing maps
- Learn about the relocation success rate
Quick intro to camera view principles
Basically, you can compare a camera view to a point of view or a perspective in the physical world. As in a video game, you can decide from where you want to see the scene. This is particularly important as changing perspective will help you to spot issues, usually when aligning virtual objects to physical points of reference (since we don’t have yet a full 3D reconstruction system).
The basics commands
Once you’ve launched a map in the online editor, you are entering the realm of 3D. It might feel a bit intimidating in the first place, so take a few minutes to go through the following instructions. We’ll use the term scene to refer to the virtual 3D environment that represents a copy of your real environment — basically the place you’ve mapped.
Moving around
Using your keyboard arrows (← ↑ → ↓) works but it’s not recommended. Instead, the basic commands to change the camera view are following:
- W/Up: Forward
- S/Down: Backward
- A/Left: Left
- D/Right: Right
- Q: Move up
- E: Move down
Rotating camera
Maintain ALT and move the mouse to turn the camera around. For Apple Macbook users, maintain the OPTION key and click on your pad while moving around. If it’s the first time you encounter this camera concept, spend a bit of time playing around!
Pan the camera
Middle click + moving the mouse to move the camera in the world (A camera pan is a horizontal movement in which the camera moves right to left from a central axis. Taken from the word “panorama,” the physical position of the camera itself does not move. Instead, the panning refers to the swiveling left to right mounted on a fixed location. This differs from dolly shots in which the mounting system itself moves). For macbook users, press with 2 fingers and move around.
If (or when) you get lost, simply click on this button to reset your view!
It happens to the best so no worry, use it again and again, especially to practice camera views.
The key functions: add content and targets
Now that you’re familiar with the basic commands, you can start adding content and targets to your scene.
1.Anchoring 3D content
One of the main functions of the editor, as its name suggests it, is to edit your scene. If you’ve mapped and created content yourself with Stardust world-scale AR app, you should be able to recognize your physical world. But we suggest to ADD OBJECTS AT SPECIFIC MARKERS OR LANDMARKS while mapping. It will help for a better representation of the real environment. For example, you can place a specific object (like hearts below) at your key spots, or identify walls with specific objects (hearts and diamonds).
Using commands, you can decide what’s the best perspective to visualize your scene. The next step is to add new objects and/or modify the position, orientation or scale of existing objects. For adding new objects, go to the top-right menu, select the object and click on the cube+ button, as follow:
By default, the 3D object will be added at the origin of the scene. The origin is always visible with a red blue green X, Y, Z axis. You can select the object by clicking (normal left-click) on its name on the right menu or directly on the object itself in the viewer. When the object is selected, it will be highlighted in orange, both on the object and on the right menu. Simply click somewhere else to unselect.
Lastly, you might want to change the position (1 on the screenshot below), orientation (2 below) or scale (3 below) of your objects. That can be done in 2 ways, either by changing the values on the right menu or by selecting your action on the bottom right (position, orientation or scale), then click & adjust the object directly.
Ultimately, we need to touch upon a special object, namely the mask. For beginners, you can ignore this part. Masks play a crucial role to make an experience more realistic, especially on phones that do not have real-time occlusion. By adding masks to your scene, you hide objects behind them, as a person or object would when it is behind a brick wall. Masks are often used to create an approximate 3D structure of a physical space, helping to mimic the physical walls, floors and ceilings.
What if I want to add content that is not on the list? Content such as large-scale 3D characters for a game, 3D goods for marketing purposes, text boxes for guidance or checkboxes for maintenance? Or simply 2D Wikipedia pages?
If, as we did, you now realize the potential of spatial computing and want to implement new solutions, you can add new 3D objects from the CMS at https://stardust.neogoma.com/object_list, but most likely you’ll need help from professional 3D designers. To be noted, if you add content from the CMS, you’ll also be able to access that content on the apps.
2.Creation targets (aka destinations or Points of interest / POI)
There are 2 ways to create destinations or points of interest: from the app directly or using the editor. Both systems are synchronised and play the same role, but we’ll focus here on the editor (see previous article, step 4, for target creation through the app). Start by clicking on the target button next to the cube button, on the top of the right menu.
The first step is to name your target and create it by clicking on the right target button. You can as many as you need.
By default, the targets are always created at the scene origin, so when you create more than 1 target, they won’t be visible until you select them. The process to select a target and position it to the desired location is exactly the same as with a 3D object. The only difference is that we’ve deactivated the vertical axis.
One important aspect, targets have to be positioned within mapped areas, so when you try to position a target outside the navigable area, represented by a green path on the editor, you’ll see a warning appearing on the top left side of your screen.
Finally, remember to save your scene! Every modification you made won’t be visible from the app if the scene is not saved.
The difficulties — we’re working on them
There is a learning curve if you’re trying 3D for the first time. How steep depends on your general skills but mostly on motivation! Before you tear your hair out, feel free to ask for assistance :) Our designers will be happy to jump in and make modifications. We’re also keen on receiving feedback, so please drop us a line at contact@neogoma.com.
You’ll probably notice very sparse point clouds (blue dots). We’re working on a realistic 3D point cloud of mapped spaces, but we’re bumping into difficulties with map updates. Below is a preview of our latest results, we’ll integrate breakthroughs progressively, so stay tuned for new releases!
Developers, clone us directly on Github: https://github.com/Neogoma/stardust-SDK/
Designers, feel free to use our free apps to create magical experiences: worldwide or if you’re in Hong Kong, help us to augment every street artwork https://ar3a.app/
Business people, marketers, operators, administrators or investors, get in touch at contact@neogoma.com and we’ll see how to augment your physical world :)
