I have an ARSCNView running an ARSession. You can pause the session with session.pause() sure, but that still in effect, leaves the session running. I have tried deallocating the ARSCNView by removing it from its superview. The ARSCNView indeed deallocates but the ARSession is still running afterwards!! You can't assign nil to ARSession either. I can see the ARSessionDelegate's
func session(_ session: ARSession, didUpdate frame: ARFrame)
is still being called!
How do you completely wipe the slate clean with ARKit once you have finished with it?
Is it even possible?
Officially, right now, you can't.
However, there is a work-around: you make the ARSCNView disposable.
On leaving AR, first pause the ARSession. Then deallocate the entire ARSCNView hierarchy & set ARSCNView to nil for good measure. Rebuild the entire ARSCNView hierarchy and start a new session whenever you need to go back to AR.
var ARview: ARSCNView?
func punchTheClown() {
ARView?.session.pause()
ARView?.removeFromSuperview()
ARView = nil
}
Other non-AR areas of your app would typically be in a separate view hierarchy at the same sibling level as your ARSCNView. I look forward to Apple providing an actual stopSession() function, so we can all stop having to punchTheClown in the meantime.