Google Cardboard XR Plugin for Unity

Late in 2019, we decided to open source Google Cardboard. Since then, our developer community has had access to create a plethora of experiences on both iOS and Android platforms, while reaching millions of users around the world. While this release has been considered a success by our developer community, we also promised that we would release a plugin for Unity. Our users have long preferred developing Cardboard experiences in Unity, so we made it a priority to develop a Unity SDK. Today, we have fulfilled that promise, and the Google Cardboard open source plugin for Unity is now available via the Unity Asset Store. 

What's Included in the Cardboard Unity SDK

Today, we’re releasing the Cardboard Unity SDK to our users so that they can continue creating smartphone XR experiences using Unity. Unity is one of the most popular 3D and XR development platforms in the world, and our release of this SDK will give our content creators a smoother workflow with Unity when developing for Cardboard.

In addition to the Unity SDK, we are also providing a sample application for iOS/Android, which will be a great aid for developers trying to debug their own creations. This release not only fulfills a promise we made to our Cardboard community, but also shows our support, as we move away from smartphone VR and leave it in the more-than-capable hands of our development community.



If you’re interested in learning how to develop with the Cardboard open source project, please see our developer documentation or visit the Google VR GitHub repo to access source code, build the project, and download the latest release.

By Jonathan Goodlow, Product Manager, AR & VR

Pie in your face — without the mess

Fun Propulsion Labs at Google is back with an exciting new release for game developers. We’ve updated Pie Noon (our open source Android game) to add support for Google Cardboard, letting you jump into the action directly using your Android phone as a virtual reality headset! Select your targets by looking at them and throw pies with a flick of the switch.

Look out for incoming pie!

We used the Cardboard SDK for Android, which helps simplify common virtual reality tasks like head tracking, rendering for Cardboard, and handling specialized input events. And you might remember us from before, bringing exciting game technologies like FlatBuffers, Pindrop, and Motive, all of which you can see in use in Pie Noon.

You can grab the latest version of Pie Noon on Google Play to try it out, or crack open the source code and take a look at how we brought an existing game into virtual reality.

By Anthony Maurice, Fun Propulsion Labs at Google