• About this archive
• Installing
• Running the examples
• Beginning your own development
• Release notes
• libKPM usage
• Next steps

This archive contains the ARToolKit libraries, utilities and examples, version 5.4.

ARToolKit version 5.4 is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3, with some additional permissions. Example code is generally released under a more permissive disclaimer; please read the file LICENSE.txt for more information.

ARToolKit is designed to build on Windows, Macintosh OS X, Linux, iOS and Android platforms.

This archive was assembled by:
Philip Lamb
https://www.artoolkit.org
2017-09-20

ARToolKit is supplied as pre-built binaries for each platform, plus full source code for the SDK libraries, utilities, and examples, and documentation.

Run the ARToolKit installer executable and follow the prompts. By default, ARToolKit will be installed into a folder inside your Program Files folder. Start menu items are created to allow you to quickly open the folder containing the installed software, to open a command-line prompt with the path set to this folder, and to read documentation and access this support site. The installer also automatically creates the ARTOOLKIT5_ROOT environment variable to point to your chosen install location.

If you are upgrading to a newer version, it is generally safe to install over the old version. Before upgrading, save any modifications you have made to any ARToolKit source or example code, and then run the installer. The installer will add or update new files, and remove unneeded old files.

The SDK is supplied as an archive file (.tar.gz or .zip file) which need only be unpacked to a location of your choice, e.g. ~/SDKs/. Drop the archive into your chosen location and double-click it in the Finder to unpack it.

Once unpacked, to set the ARTOOLKIT5_ROOT so that other software can find ARToolKit, open a Terminal window, and run the script artoolkit5-setenv: (Example assumes ARToolKit5 is in ~/SDKs/):

cd ~/SDKs/ARToolKit5/
./share/artoolkit5-setenv

The SDK is supplied as an archive file (.tar.gz) which need only be unpacked to a location of your choice, e.g. ~/SDKs/. Move the archive into your chosen location and use the following command in your terminal to unpack it:

tar xzvf ARToolKit5-bin-*.tar.gz

Once unpacked, to set the ARTOOLKIT5_ROOT so that other software can find ARToolKit, open a terminal window, and run the script artoolkit5-setenv: (Example assumes ARToolKit5 is in ~/SDKs/):

cd ~/SDKs/ARToolKit5/
./share/artoolkit5-setenv

ARToolKit includes a variety of examples demonstrating ARToolKit programming techniques. After installation, the executables for these applications can be found in the bin directory inside your ARToolKit directory. The simpleLite example is the most straightforward example. It can be run to test your ARToolKit installation is functioning correctly.

An explanation of the sourcecode of this example can be found on the page https://www.artoolkit.org/documentation/Examples:example_simplelite. More detailed information about the techniques demonstrated in each example can be found in the documentation.

simpleLite can be opened by double-clicking its icon in the ARToolKit5\bin directory. Alternately, you can run it from the command line:

• Open a command-line window (cmd.exe).
• Navigate to your ARToolKit5\bin directory.
• Type: simpleLite.exe

• Bundled applications are generated for the examples. Open the "bin" directory in the Finder and double-click the "simpleLite" example app. Application errors are logged in the Console application.

simpleLite can be launched from a terminal window thus:

• First, set the environment variable ARTOOLKIT5_VCONF to indicate the video device to be used; for example, to use a Video4Linux2 camera, do: export ARTOOLKIT5_VCONF="-module=V4L2" or to use a camera driven via GStreamer, do export ARTOOLKIT5_VCONF="-module=GStreamer"
• then cd to the bin directory and do ./simpleLite

In beginning your own development, it is recommended that you create your own project outside the ARToolKit folder, and treat ARToolKit as an external SDK. However, it is also perfectly permissible to begin by modifying one or more of the example applications. ARToolKit is supplied with project files for each supported platform. The project files allow you to rebuild ARToolKit from source, and act as examples of how to structure your own application builds (e.g. required link libraries).

Required external software

• A supported compiler or IDE is required to use ARToolKit:

Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 is supported. The free Microsoft Visual Studio Express Edition will also work.

Xcode tools v5.1 under macOS 10.9 or later is required. Xcode 6 under macOS 10.10 is recommended. Xcode may be obtained free from Apple at https://developer.apple.com/xcode/.

g++ with libstdc++, or Clang and LLVM's libc++ are required. For the latter, install Packages: 'clang', 'libc++-dev'.

Where ARToolKit libraries require external DLLs, these are generally supplied with ARToolKit. Exceptions are listed below.

• OpenGL version 1.5 or later is required. This is usually provided by the display drivers, as the base system supports only OpenGL v1.4.

The optional video capture sources require some external software:

• QuickTime movie files as video source: QuickTime 6.4 or later must be installed. Download from https://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/.
• Point Grey camera: The Flycapture SDK (distributed with Point Grey Cameras) must be installed.

• C++ runtime: libc++ is only available on OS X 10.7 and later.
• OpenSceneGraph (optional; The ARToolKit OSG renderer requires OpenSceneGraph). Use the installer provided at https://www.artoolkit.org/dist/openscenegraph/.

ARToolKit follows the Linux model whereby required software is externally installed. The following packages are required to be installed in your package manager to run the ARToolKit examples. (Additional packages required to build ARToolKit from source are listed on that help page.)

• C++ runtime: use the standard libstdc++ or install the package 'libc++1'.
• OpenGL: Package 'xorg'
• OpenCV (unless building with Clang). Packages: 'libopencv-dev'.
• GLUT: Package 'freeglut3'. Alternatively, GLUT can be built from source and is also included in the MESA 3D libraries:
• Video4Linux, lib1394dc, or GStreamer. Packages: 'libv4l2-0', 'libdc1394-22' (for lib1394 version 2.x) or 'libdc1394-13' (for lib1394 version 1.x), and 'libgstreamer1.0' or 'libgstreamer0.10'.
• OpenSceneGraph (optional; The ARToolKit OSG renderer requires OpenSceneGraph). Package 'openscenegraph'.

Open the "VisualStudio" directory, then the appropriate directory for your compiler version, and then the "ARToolKit5.sln" solution file.

Open the ARToolKit5.xcodeproj, found inside the Xcode folder.

The SDK build system uses a Configure script and makefiles. To run the script, use this command from a terminal window:

./Configure

This release contains ARToolKit v5.4.

As the first major update to ARToolKit v5.x for some time, a number of changes are incorporated in the libraries. The most visible external change is in an overhaul of the video libraries available on each platform. On macOS, the QuickTime and QTKit modules have been replaced with the AVFoundation module. On Windows, the DirectShow and DragonFly modules have been dropped. On Linux, Video4Linux2 is now the default, and the DVCam module has been dropped.

External API changes in ARToolKit v5.3.3:

arVideoGetImage now returns a pointer to an AR2VideoBufferT structure. Previously it returned a raw pointer to a pixel buffer. The buffer is valid until the next call to arVideoGetImage, or until the video stream is stopped and/or closed with a call to arVideoCapStop or arVideoClose. This API is now consistent with the ar2VideoGetImage call.

    From:  ARUint8 *arVideoGetImage(void);
    To: AR2VideoBufferT *arVideoGetImage(void);

Note that the minimum supported structure of returned video images have changed. The only guaranteed channel now is a luminance channel. For video modules that cannot provide a luma channel readily internally, accelerated ARM, ARM64 and x86 SSE routines perform an optimized conversion from 32-bit RGBA formats internally to ar2VideoGetImage.

Correspondingly, the API for arDetectMarker has changed. It now accepts a pointer to an AR2VideoBufferT structure, rather than a raw pointer to a pixel buffer.

    From: int arDetectMarker(ARHandle *arHandle, ARUint8 *dataPtr);
    To: int arDetectMarker(ARHandle *arHandle, AR2VideoBufferT *frame);

Additionally, the API for a number of internal ARToolKit functions has changed to reflect the expectation that these functions will be supplied with a luminance-only buffer. Several functions in libKPM reflect this change.

The major change in ARToolKit v5.3 was a new version of libKPM based on the FREAK detector framework, contributed by DAQRI. See "libKPM usage" below.

Please see the ChangeLog.txt for details of changes in this and earlier releases.

ARToolKit v5.2 was the first major release under an open source license in several years, and represented several years of commercial development of ARToolKit by ARToolworks during this time. It was a significant change to previous users of ARToolKit v2.x. Please see https://www.artoolkit.org/documentation/ARToolKit_feature_comparison for more information.

For users of ARToolKit Professional versions 4.0 through 5.1.7, ARToolKit v5.2 and later include a number of changes. Significantly, full source is now provided for the NFT libraries libAR2 and libKPM.

libKPM, which performs key-point matching for NFT page recognition and initialization now use a FREAK detector framework, contributed by DAQRI. Unlike the previous commercial version of libKPM which used SURF features, FREAK is not encumbered by patents. libKPM now joins the other core ARToolKit libraries under an LGPLv3 license. Additionally the new libKPM no longer has dependencies on OpenCV's FLANN library, which should simply app builds and distribution on all supported platforms.

We have made a forum for discussion of ARToolKit for Desktop development available on our community website.

https://www.artoolkit.org/community/forums/viewforum.php?f=29

You are invited to join the forum and contribute your questions, answers and success stories.

ARToolKit consists of a full ecosystem of SDKs for desktop, web, mobile and in-app plugin augmented reality. Stay up to date with information and releases from artoolkit.org by joining our announcements mailing list. (Click ‘Subscribe’ at the bottom of https://www.artoolkit.org/)

Do you have a feature request, bug report, or other code you would like to contribute to ARToolKit? Access the complete source and issue tracker for ARToolKit at https://github.com/artoolkit/artoolkit5