Beyond C++: My WebAR Journey with Rust and SIMD
It has been quite a while since my last update here (November 2022). While the blog has been quiet, the activity behind the scenes has been intense, marked by a significant transition toward Rust and the growth of the webarkit organization.
Over the past few years, I have focused on rewriting the foundations of my tools to ensure safety and superior performance within the browser. Two projects, in particular, represent the heart of this effort:
- WebARKitLib-rs: A full Rust port of the classic ARToolkit engine. By leveraging WASM and SIMD instructions, I have optimized marker tracking to achieve significantly higher performance compared to previous versions.
- purecv: A Computer Vision library written entirely in Rust. Focused on core and imgproc modules, it is designed to be lightweight, modular, and performant.
The Future: An Integrated Ecosystem My vision for the near future is to integrate purecv as an optional crate within WebARKitLib-rs. This synergy will pave the way for a powerful new WebAR tool, offering developers an “all-in-one” Rust solution optimized for the web while remaining ready for native architectures.
Sustaining the Ecosystem Despite the deep dive into Rust development, my commitment to the JavaScript and AR communities remains unchanged. I have continued to maintain and evolve jsartoolkitNFT and ARnft, ensuring they remain robust tools for web developers. Furthermore, I am still actively managing and maintaining the AR-js-org organization, supporting the incredible community that relies on AR.js for their projects.
Although my background is rooted in visual arts, I see code as a fundamental expressive medium. There is still much to experiment with—and much to write, both in code and in my novel L’ultimo Giardino sulla terra—but I am glad to be back sharing this journey with you.
Stay tuned!