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Why is Extended Tracking being deprecated ?

Hello,

In the Wikitude SDK 9.12 release notes, we noticed this :

"The extended tracking feature is now marked as deprecated". Also the documentation states "Warning: This feature is marked as deprecated and will be removed in future releases."


There is no information about why it is being deprecated or if it will be replaced by something else ?

Could you please tell us more about it ?


This was a major feature for our project (Unity SDK Pro) and it would be a shame to lose it.


Regards


Hi TeamThales,


we're deprecating the Extended Tracking feature for the Professional Edition because the underlying technology is outdated and becomes more and more complicated to maintain. In general we are focusing on merging the features of the Personal Edition into the Expert Edition this year and only maintain one product which is much easier. The Expert Edition still supports the Extended Tracking feature as well as AR Bridge/Foundation. We're also planning on changing the subscription model which will result in cheaper prices. I can't make any promises about dates and numbers to you yet. But if you are curious I can gladly forward you to a member of our marketing team.


With best regards,

Peter

 Hello,


"The Expert Edition still supports the Extended Tracking feature as well as AR Bridge/Foundation."

Is this true ?

On this page ( https://www.wikitude.com/products/wikitude-sdk-features/ ), "Extended Tracking (based on Instant Tracking)" is not listed in the "Expert Edition" column.

Also this page ( https://www.wikitude.com/external/doc/expertedition/Concepts.html#tracking-for-augmented-reality ) says that Extended Tracking "is not available anymore in the Expert Edition and superseded by a different more practical behaviour." What is this new behavior and how will it work ? Will the tracking still work if the target moves out of the field of view of the camera ?


"we are focusing on merging the features of the Personal Edition into the Expert Edition this year"

I assume you meant "merging the Professional Edition into the Expert Edition" :)
This sounds great ! This means we will have access to more features and also we don't have to chose between two similar products anymore, this was a bit confusing to chose between "Expert" and "Pro".


"We're also planning on changing the subscription model which will result in cheaper prices. I can't make any promises about dates and numbers to you yet. But if you are curious I can gladly forward you to a member of our marketing team."
This also sounds great!

We cannot change our subscription for the moment since our product requires Extended Tracking and some other features that only the Professional Edition provides.

But once the 2 products are merged we will be more than happy to renew our subscription.

Is there a newsletter where we should subscribe to in order to know when this change will be released this year ?


Regards,

Thales team

Hey Team Thales!


Regarding the Extended Tracking:

Yes, it does still support Extended Tracking. Not natively but through the usage of the AR Bridge (ARKit/ARCore). Since the do a pretty good job providing the Extended Tracking feature already there's no need for us to reinvent the wheel :)
If you check the Wikitude SDK Feature page and scroll a bit more down you can see the Extended Tracking being mentioned under the ARBrdige section: "Combine Wikitude with ARFoundation (ARCore & ARKit) features, such as: Positional Tracking, Plane, Face, Body, Extended tracking, Occlusion, etc.". So in short: Yes, Extended Tracking will still work the same. The tracking will be possible although the tracker won't be visible any more.


Regarding the merge:

Oh yes, sorry for the typo.

Exactly! Having just one product makes it more easy to use and understand. Also it's easier to maintain, especially if we get rid of the legacy code so we can focus on improving it.


Regarding the subscription model:

Happy to hear that you're pleased with the upcoming changes :)

Unfortunately there's no newsletter. We were planning to release the new 9.13 version in December already but there due to some legal issues we have to wait a bit longer. But let me check with marketing, maybe a newsletter would be a good idea :)


With best regards,

Peter

Hello Team Thales!


I just wanted to let you know that a new version of our Wikitude SDK v9.13 is now finally available for download: https://www.wikitude.com/download-wikitude-sdk-for-unity/


With best regards,

Peter

Does the 9.13 version include examples?

Hello Karastergiou,


yes. The samples were re-enabled in the current 9.13 version.


With best regards,

Peter

Hello Peter,

Is there any news regarding the merging of Pro and Expert editions?

Kind Regards,
Georgios

Hello Georgios,


we've already released our latest SDK v9.13 in February. You can download it here. With this update the Expert Edition provides the same features the Professional Edition does. We're soon releasing a new SDK update including some fixes.


With best regards,

Peter

Hello Peter.


While trying to resolve this issue : https://support.wikitude.com/support/discussions/topics/5000097896

we wanted to give the Expert 9.13 SDK a try to see if the issue also appeared.


Unfortunately, after building for UWP, the application crashes when the "Wikitude SDK" object tries to initialize.

Happens launching the app from Visual Studio or after building the .APPX, also on a PC or a Windows tablet.

There seems to be an unhandled exception when calling UnityUWPBrigde.InstantiatePlatform (screenshot attached) making the application crash instantly.


I have noticed in the release notes that UWP is only supported since the 9.13 version of the Expert SDK, so I understand that it cannot be perfect yet, but for now it is not working at all.


Do you have an ETA for when the next version will come out ?

(I also have some other feedback about the 9.13, throwing some errors here and there even in the Editor, but I'll probably share them later and when the next version is out).


Kind regards,

Hi TeamThales,


unfortunately I can't tell you a concrete date when 9.14 will be ready. All I'm able to say is that it will be available soon and we'll gladly let you know.


With best regards,

Peter

Hello,


Nothing about the UWP Expert Edition samples always crashing on all UWP devices ? (Professional Edition 9.6 is working fine on them).

Have you already encountered such issue ?


Regards

Hello,


I'm sorry, I didn't give you a proper answer:
We've already encountered this issue. The Expert Edition is having issues with UWP and is currently not yet usable, unfortunately. You can find further details in this post. We already fixed the issues and hoped that we could release our next version soon. However the release got postponed and we're now waiting for some weeks already until we're have the go to ship those crucial fixes. I know that you and others rely on them to finally be able to use UWP in combination with the Expert Edition and I am really sorry for all the inconveniences. Since I can't make any estimations I hope you can wait a bit longer until it will be available.


Greetings,

Peter

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