Disable/Toggle visualization of tracked planes in ARCore unity

Question

I have been looking on the code for ARCore Unity for a while and I want to do one simple task that is, to have a toggle button so user can place an object in the scene while knowing where to place it while the tracked planes are visible and once the user places the object, he is given the option of just visually disabling the tracked planes so it looks more realistic. I was able to do this in Android Studio by doing something like this in the main HelloArActivity.java:

if (planeToggle) {
                mPlaneRenderer.drawPlanes(mSession.getAllPlanes(), frame.getPose(), projmtx);
            }

this was really simple. I made a bool named planeToggle and just placed the mPlaneRenderer.drawPlanes function in an if condition. When the bool is true it displays the planes and when its false, it does not...

However, with Unity I am confused. I did something like this in the HelloARController.cs :

I made a button to togglePlanes. Set an event listener to it to toggle a boolean variable and did something like this :

for (int i = 0; i < m_newPlanes.Count; i++)
                {
                // Instantiate a plane visualization prefab and set it to track the new plane. The transform is set to
                // the origin with an identity rotation since the mesh for our prefab is updated in Unity World
                // coordinates.

                GameObject planeObject = Instantiate(m_trackedPlanePrefab, Vector3.zero, Quaternion.identity,
                        transform);
                    planeObject.GetComponent<TrackedPlaneVisualizer>().SetTrackedPlane(m_newPlanes[i]);

                    m_planeColors[0].a = 0;

                    // Apply a random color and grid rotation.
                    planeObject.GetComponent<Renderer>().material.SetColor("_GridColor", m_planeColors[0]);
                    planeObject.GetComponent<Renderer>().material.SetFloat("_UvRotation", Random.Range(0.0f, 360.0f));


        if (togglePlanes == false){    // my code

          planeObject.SetActive(false); // my code

          } //
  }

Nothing happens when I press the toggle button.

The other option I had was to make changes in the TrackedPlaneVisualizer.cs where I did something like this :

for (int i = 0; i < planePolygonCount; ++i)
            {
                Vector3 v = m_meshVertices[i];

                // Vector from plane center to current point
                Vector3 d = v - planeCenter;

                float scale = 1.0f - Mathf.Min((FEATHER_LENGTH / d.magnitude), FEATHER_SCALE);
                m_meshVertices.Add(scale * d + planeCenter);

                if (togglePlanesbool == true) // my code
                {
                    m_meshColors.Add(new Color(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f)); // my code
                }

                else
                {
                    m_meshColors.Add(new Color(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f)); // my code
                }
     }

This did work. But I am experiencing delays in toggling and sometimes if two different planes have been rendered they start toggling between themselves(if one is enabled, other gets disabled). So I guess this is also not the option to go for....Anyone who can help?

Note that I am a beginner in Unity.

Answer 1

The sample isn't really designed to hide and show the planes, so you have to add a couple things.

First, there is no collection of the GameObjects that represent the ARCore planes. The easiest way to do this is to add a tag to the game objects:

In the Unity editor, find the TrackedPlaneVisualizer prefab and select it. Then in the property inspector, drop down the Tag dropdown and add a tag named plane.

Next, in the Toggle handler method, you need to find all the game objects with the "plane" tag. Then get both the Renderer and TrackedPlaneVisualizer components and enable or disable them based on the toggle. You need to do both components; the Renderer draws the plane, and the TrackedPlaneVisualizer re-enables the Renderer (ideally it would honor the Renderer's state).

    public void OnTogglePlanes(bool flag) {
        showPlanes = flag;
        foreach (GameObject plane in GameObject.FindGameObjectsWithTag ("plane")) {
            Renderer r = plane.GetComponent<Renderer> ();
            TrackedPlaneVisualizer t = plane.GetComponent<TrackedPlaneVisualizer>();
            r.enabled = flag;
            t.enabled = flag;
        }
    }

You can also do a similar thing where the GameObject is instantiated, so new planes honor the toggle.