Virtual Reality Development for the Google Daydream

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 toolsets: 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 Contents:
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