Google Unveils VR Reality viewer SDKs & Specs

Google released open hardware specs and Android and Unity SDKs for its “Google Cardboard,” which turns smartphones into a low-cost stereoscopic VR viewers.

Now, Google has released Google Cardboard’s first fully formed Android SDK, as well as the first SDK for the Unity gaming engine. The open source kits let you modify applications, videos, and images to appear in 3D on the device, or build new ones.

The Android SDK enables applications with features including lens distortion correction, head tracking, 3D calibration, and side-by-side rendering. Other features include stereo geometry configuration and user input event handling.

Google also released a new set of hardware specs under open source license, with improved design templates and manufacturing guidelines. In addition, the company has launched a collection page on Google Play containing over a dozen Cardboard-ready apps. Most of them, including Jaunt’s Paul McCartney and Jack White immersive music apps, are free. Some these apps are also available on iOS.

Google Cardboard is simpler than Android-based 3D viewing devices such as the Oculus Rift-infused Samsung Gear VR, which went on sale for $200 this week. It’s also somewhat less advanced than Carl Weiss’s $99 VR One, which is due to ship soon.

 Specs listed for the UC VR Headset are as follows:

• E-Flute corrugated cardboard
• 2x Asymmetric-BiConvex optical lenses (25mm diameter, 45mm focal length)
• Forehead strip
• Ceramic disc magnet (3/4 in.)
• Neodymium (rare earth) ring magnet (3/4 x 1/8 in.)
• 2x pairs of velcro strips
• #32 rubber band
• Programmed NFC tag (NTAG203 sticker)
• Optional head strap (add $4.95)
  

Particularly impressive is the magnet-enabled switch that lets you trigger actions and select menu items, writes Lee. “It truly felt like I was using an old-school View-Master from my childhood, except now I can do things like watch movies and play games,” adds Lee.

About Anna Harris:
Anna Harris working as web content writer and a strategist for a major IT firm specialized in various mobile application development services for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and other operating systems.

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