Linking AR and Vuforia Studio developed App to SharePoint

[arnewbie76]

Hello all, total newbie here, who is keen to learn and has downloaded Vuforia Studio! I have a number of questions, starting with this one, that I'm hoping someone can help with. By the way, I'm not an out and out techie!

I'm looking to build an app that can help in a maintenance scenario. E.g. helping an cable electrician with basic tags that show how to perform routine maintenance. E.g. access to more comprehensive functions more detailed operating procedures like documents or videos linked to a content management platform like Alfresco or SharePoint.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to be able to link tags in a Vuforia created app that can access content like documents and videos held in a content management system like Alfresco or SharePoint that could be viewed on an iPad or wearable? I have access to both through a HoloLens.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[RolandRaytchev]

Hi @arnewbie76 ,

to make the issue clear I have question/s:

- what tool you want to use? Vuforia Engine - based  on Unity or Android Studio programming environment or you want to integrate your environment in the Vuforia Studio /dev env/ and on Vuforia View as runtime environment

In Vuforia Studio we use as development environment to develop application – Experiences which could be downloaded from an Experience Service. The Experience /the application/ will work on runtime on the mobile device inside the Vuforia View. – this is the runtime environment where the AR Studio app is tasted. For there we can call any links which will be passed to the OS environment of the device. So for example if you call a PDF link and the device “understand” pdf – means there is a PDF viewer registered it will call it.

In the other direction we can call a deep link which will call an experience form any applications. The requirement is that the link is called on a mobile device /or HoloLens/ where Vuforia View app is already installed.  Such link we can generated in Vuforia Studio – share experience tab:

[arnewbie76]

Thank you for the late reply and thank you for your detailed reply Roland. To answer your question, yes, I am using Vuforia Studio, as that is the first one I've tried, so I'll stick to it.

I'm not familiar with some of the technical terms like a runtime environment. I'm not sure if this makes sense, but I'd like to use Vuforia studio to create triggers or what Vuforia calls Thingmarks to embed tags of knowledge.

As a Tier 1 - This will be in the form of basic text instructions, press button A, followed by valve B and controller C

As a Tier 2 - When these instructions are not enough, to be able to access more detailed procedures, such as operating procedures that will be held on a content management system. That content management system should ideally be SharePoint or Alfresco content management system. 

Does that make sense? 

Thanks in advance,

[RolandRaytchev]

Hi @arnewbie76 ,

I think, yes definitely your concept make sense, but we need to discuss some specific details based on the functionality in studio.

- What I meant with environment – this is the Vuforia Studio installation on your machine/Windows – in this case the working environment is your chrome browser with node js sever in background. This is only a development environment. - this was what I meant. So, in chrome you have a preview mode where you can test your application and you can get an impression about the application behavior on end device – but this only approximately.  Because your application later will work on mobile device /e.g. Android or IOS/ and there is a different operating system which supports different API /comparing to e.g. to windows development environment. In case that you use only supported Studio APIs and functionality there is no problem and we will have nearly the same behavior. But in case that you want to call non Studio native API calls , rest API or external links this depends on the environment where Vuforia View is running (your application/ project is called in Vuforia View App). For example, if there is link to external pdf document and it is called -> this task is passed to the OS and it depends on your device if there is installed a PDF viewer which could be involved to open this document. In case that there is other documented management /system application installed – in this case such call will only make a sense if this application is installed already  on the device where Vuforia view is running and also if this application will provide a API for JavaScript or REST API. Unfortunately I do not have a knowledge about the JavaScript or Rest API support of Alfresco or SharePoint and therefore could not give more hints what should be the implementation. For example if there is some external call e.g. window.open() or window.location=link which will call a external link with some arguments or Rest API request called  e.g. http$.post()