More than three years ago, Google demonstrated with ARCore that no additional hardware was needed to enjoy augmented reality. The main camera of our device was enough to track the environment and place 3D animals and other elements.
Google enhances ARCore with dual camera support
In all these years ARCore has reached more than 450 mobiles, and in all these devices making use of a single camera to perform the calculations, but this is soon going to change. Google is going to start using the dual camera to enhance the augmented reality experience, at least on the Pixel 4.
The recent Google Play Services update for AR reports that among its new features that “Stereo depth for the dual camera on supported devices” is coming. And if we go to the ARCore compatibility page we see on the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL that “dual-camera support will be implemented in the coming week”.
The penultimate generation of the Pixel would be the first devices to premiere this new depth in stereo, a feature that should improve the quality of augmented reality by being able to calculate more accurately the depth of the environment, especially to detect the physical elements that stand in front of the virtual 3D objects.
Google has not yet officially announced this new feature, it has only mentioned it in the Google Play tab and on the support page, so the only thing we know is that in a few weeks this improvement will arrive at the Pixel 4. It is unknown if it will also reach the Pixel 4a XL and Pixel 5 or devices with the dual camera from other manufacturers.
