Getting started Android

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The following is a brief guide on starting development with metaio Mobile SDK on Android. Although previous experience on Android development is not required, but it is recommended that you are familiar with basic Android development. Furthermore, the information on this page is subject to change with the introduction of new Android SDK and tools.

Prerequisites

If you are Android beginner, we recommend NVIDIA Tegra Development Pack. It is available for Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux and has everything included to get started right away.

or, if you prefer can also start with official Android SDK. The official instructions are given here.

Additionally you need an Android device with following minimum features:

• Android 2.2 (Froyo)
• ARMv7 (Cortex) processor
• OpenGLES 2.0 support
• Camera
• GPS (Location), Accelerometer and Magnetic sensors for GPS/Compass based tracking

You can find out if your device meet above requirements by using free Android System Info from Android Market.

Building and Running the Tutorials

The following is a brief guide on how to build and run metaio Mobile SDK Tutorials.

Import Tutorials Project

The first step is to import Tutorials project into your Eclipse workspace. The tutorials can be found here:

• On Windows: <install directory>\metaio\metaio Mobile SDK - 3.0.0\SDK_Android\Example
• On MacOS :

It is recommended that you make a copy of the Example folder in a directory that do not contain spaces,e.g. c:\Example.

Important: Make sure that entire contents of the Example directory are not readonly.

Next, open Eclipse with your preferred workspace. Go to File→Import:

Select Existing Projects into Workspace and click Next

Browse for Example folder and click Finish.

You will see MobileSDK3.0Examples project in the Package Explorer on the left:

Building the application

Build the project by clicking Project→Build menu.

Possible Build Errors

There could be following possible build errors if your development environment is not properly configured.

Missing gen source folder

The setup project of MobileSDK can sometimes fail to create empty gen folder in Example directory. This will yield following error in Eclipse while building.

To fix this error, perfom a clean on the project by choosing Project → Clean... from the menu and selecting the 'Example' project in the up popping dialog.

If that doesn't work, make sure that you have the permission to write in the projects directory and that it is not locked or write protected.

Important: Eclipse sometimes does not refreshes properly. If you still see this error in the Problems panel, you can do the following:

Create an empty directory in Example folder and name is gen. Then refresh your workspace by going to File→Refresh.

Click on the error in the Problems pan and delete it by pressing the DEL button. Then build the project again.

If the error persists, please restart your Eclipse.

Running the application

Before running the application, connect your Android device to your development environment through USB or Network. For more details on please see ADB.

Run the application by clicking Run→Run, or pressing the green play button on the tool bar.

When the application is run for the first time, it will ask for the Run Configuration:

Select Android Application and click OK.

It will upload and install the APK to your Android device and launch the menu screen:

The explanation for each example is given here.