In this chapter, we got our development system set up and ready to do augmented reality development, whether that be a Windows PC or a macOS. First, we installed Unity, which will be the game engine platform for all the projects in this book, including optional components that you will need, depending on your target build AR device. Then we presented a short introduction to using Unity, emphasizing the key features that you'll need to get started.

Then we introduced two AR SDKs that we use in this book. Vuforia is a professional toolkit that has many features and is easy to use, but carries a license fee for commercial products. We also looked at ARToolkit, an open source project, perhaps less capable than Vuforia but more transparent and extendable. For each SDK, we walked you through the installation and then built a simple demo AR application.

However, that's only half the setup battle. In the next chapter, we show you how to set up your system to build and deploy your projects onto various target devices that can run your AR app, including Android, iOS, and/or HoloLens.