Virtual Reality Development for the Google Daydream

by Matthew Scarpino

The Google Daydream is one of the most powerful mobile VR systems available. With the right set of tools, developers can build applications that take advantage of its many features, which include head tracking, stereoscopic rendering, and spatial audio output. This book explores two of these the Google VR Software Development Kit (SDK) for Android and the Google VR Native Development Kit (NDK) for Android. The Unity SDK and the Unreal SDK are not discussed. The book begins by introducing Android Studio and the fundamental classes provided by the Android API. Next, the book presents 3-D rendering with OpenGL ES and the graphical requirements needed to create a virtual reality environment. The last part of the book presents applications that take full advantage of the Daydream's VR capabilities. In addition to presenting Java-based applications, the later chapters explain how to improve performance with C/C++ code. Table of Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Android Studio Chapter 3: Activities, Views, and Resources Chapter 4: Text Views and Image Views Chapter 5: Threads, Handlers, and AsyncTasks Chapter 6: Introduction to Google VR Development Chapter 7: Graphics Development with OpenGL ES Chapter 8: Shaders and Uniform Data Chapter 9: Rendering Objects in Three Dimensions Chapter 10: Textures and Text Chapter 11: Advanced OpenGL ES Development Chapter 12: Accessing the Daydream Controller Chapter 13: Spatial Audio, Panoramas, and Video Chapter 14: Introduction to the Google VR Native Development Kit (NDK) Chapter 15: Swap Chains and Native Rendering Chapter 16: Advanced NDK Development Chapter 17: App Deployment

436 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 28, 2017