What's the difference between ARKit and RealityKit?

The primary difference between ARKit and RealityKit lies in their focus and capabilities for creating augmented reality (AR) and spatial experiences.

ARKit

ARKit is a framework designed to help developers create AR experiences by leveraging the device's camera and motion sensors. It provides tools for tracking the environment, detecting surfaces, and placing virtual objects in the real world. ARKit is primarily focused on the following:

• Environmental Understanding: Detects horizontal and vertical surfaces, tracks the position and orientation of the device, and understands the lighting conditions of the environment.
• Object Detection and Tracking: Recognizes and tracks images, 3D objects, and faces.
• Motion Capture: Captures and analyzes human body motion in real-time.

RealityKit

RealityKit, on the other hand, is a high-performance 3D simulation and rendering framework that builds on top of ARKit to provide more advanced capabilities for creating immersive spatial experiences. It is designed to work seamlessly across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. Key features of RealityKit include:

• High-Performance Rendering: Provides real-time rendering capabilities for creating visually rich 3D content.
• Simulation: Supports physics-based simulations for realistic interactions between virtual objects.
• Advanced APIs: Offers APIs for creating complex animations, dynamic lighting, and custom shaders.
• Integration with Reality Composer Pro: Allows for intuitive editing and placement of virtual content.
• Cross-Platform Capabilities: Ensures that the same content can be used across different Apple platforms.

Summary

• ARKit: Focuses on environmental understanding, object detection, and motion capture to create AR experiences.
• RealityKit: Builds on ARKit to provide advanced 3D rendering, simulation, and animation capabilities for creating immersive spatial experiences across multiple Apple platforms.

For more detailed information on RealityKit, you can refer to the session Discover RealityKit APIs for iOS, macOS and visionOS.