iOS toggling between forward and rear facing cameras

I'm Stuck
1

Include the following details (edit as applicable):

  • Issue category: Multiplayer / Real-time Mapping-Depth / Unity Example Package / Developer Tools / VPS
  • Device type & OS version: iOS 18.6.2 / iPhone 15 Pro Max,
  • Host machine & OS version: Mac / Windows / Linux / Other Ex. Mac on Big Sur x.x
  • Issue Environment : On Device
  • Xcode version: Version 26.0.1 (17A400)
  • ARDK version: 3.13.0-2504092018
  • Unity version: 6000.0.58f2

Description of the issue:

I’ve tried setting AR Camera Manager’s “Facing Direction” value to “User” in the editor, but the back facing camera still comes on.

I’ve passed a reference to AR Camera Manager into a Controller class of my own. I have the following code run:

arCameraManager.requestedFacingDirection = CameraFacingDirection.User;
Debug.Log(“camera facing:” + arCameraManager.currentFacingDirection);

The log reads “camera facing:none”

I was just trying to verify that I should be able to toggle between the two with ARDK 3.13. I remember in 3.x source code, stumbling upon the enums and such for faces and thus assumed front facing camera stuff was workable and not disallowed. Not sure if that stuff ever made it into an official release or if I could use it. :slight_smile:

2

Hi Tom,

Thank you for reaching out.

The ARCameraManager component isn’t ARDK-specific and comes from Unity’s AR Foundation. The camera facing direction is controlled by your ConfigurationChooser which has the job of selecting the best camera for the requested feature set. If you have more features that require the rear (or world-facing) camera than the user-facing camera, the ConfigurationChooser will select it. What’s more, the currentFacingDirection variable can take some time to update, so you shouldn’t query the current value right after requesting a new direction. I would recommend adding a short delay before querying the variable.

Can you elaborate on your specific use-case?

Kind regards,
Maverick L.

3

My use case in my app is that users can choose between different kinds of experiences. The two available are a game which uses a world facing camera only and a decorate your world experience which could use world facing or user facing camera, which ever they choose.

Thanks,
Tom Ortega

4

Hi Tom,

Thanks for providing that information. It sounds like the best approach for your use-case is to prepare two configurations. One for users that want the world-facing camera only and one for the user-facing camera users. Please review the Configuration Chooser in AR Foundation’s documentation here and take note that some AR features aren’t available for the user-facing camera. Those features must be excluded from the configuration that enables the user-facing camera.

Let me know if you need clarification or have any other questions.

Kind regards,
Maverick L.