Although this website is committed to virtual reality, you cannot discuss it without mentioning its very close cousin augmented reality, but what is it?
Whereas virtual reality immerses your senses completely in the world that only exists in the digital realm, augmented reality takes the real world from the present and projects digital imagery and sound with it. Augmented and Virtual Reality both fall about the continuum of mediated reality. Which is in which a computer modifies our thought of reality versus the “real” world.
As you can probably deduce this implies several things qualify as Los Angeles augmented reality. The heads up displays we notice in a few aircraft and cars which may explain to you such things as “distance into a target”, GPS position or your current speed are a kind of augmented reality. Events with digital avatars of deceased musicians including Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur projected onto a screen while using Pepper’s Ghost illusion would also qualify beneath a broad meaning of augmented reality.
However, once we hear about augmented reality these days it usually means an infinitely more sophisticated, interactive and spatially aware implementation of your concept. Where digital objects such as 3D models or video are projected onto our look at reality as though these folks were really there.
The kind of augmented reality you are most likely to encounter uses a selection of sensors (together with a camera), computer components as well as a display device to make the illusion of virtual objects in real life.
Due to the interest in smartphones, that contain every one of the necessary components, they are the place most commercial augmented reality applications that have been released.
Generally speaking the unit looks for a particular target. This could be anything, but usually it’s a 2D image printed on something similar to a film poster. Once the augmented reality application recognizes the marked via the camera it processes the picture and augments it somehow with pictures and sound. As an example, you might begin to see the movie poster spring alive and play a trailer for the film. As long as you check out the poster throughout the “window” in the display you can observe augmented reality as opposed to plain old vanilla reality.
Through the use of smart algorithms as well as other sensors including accelerometers and gyroscopes the unit are able to keep the augmented elements aligned using the image of real life.
By using a smartphone or tablet computer as a “magic window” to the augmented world is one way we can relay this digital info to your eyes, but there are numerous other ways to do this.
Digital imagery may be projected directly onto physical objects. This is known as projection mapping and can be used to quite striking effect. By way of example, the Dyadic Mano-a-Mano uses projectors and Microsoft Kinect sensors to supply an individual with 3D digital imagery projected directly into the environment. The person doesn’t should wear equipment or use any devices. Interaction using this technique is highly natural and intuitive.
Projection mapping as being an augmented reality method has a lot of potential, but it requires a controlled and mapped space so that you can work. The technique that is likely to supplant smartphone augmented reality like a common implementation away from the laboratory is just one that utilizes head mounted systems. This is where virtual and augmented reality really start to converge, while there is no real reasons why the pinnacle mounted systems utilized by both technologies can not be cross-functional. Indeed, head mounted systems that use smartphones to function often times have something known as a camera “pass-through”. Put simply, even if you can’t see anything aside from the screen of the head mounted display (HMD) it might show you the surface world via the rear-facing camera from the phone. This needless to say enables augmented reality without the need for a handheld device. However, unless specially engineered against it, this process leaves one feeling a little disconnected in the experience, because the camera’s perspective and insufficient depth perception don’t quite gel in comparison with what the naked eye sees.
One way to get around this is to use a method as found in the Google Glass and Microsoft Hololens. The two of these devices use something known as a “prism projector”. Your eye area in the user check at the world unimpeded, but digital imagery is projected in the prism projection system that sits between your eye and also the outside world, making it appear as if those objects are very there, located on a table or hanging versus the wall. Just how this HMD achieves this can be complex and fascinating and yes it discussed more completely inside our Hololens article.
There are several ways to achieve the goal of augmented reality, but as you have seen the end result is the fact that we see digital information blend together with the analogue world. A thing that has several, many applications. Most of which we’ll take a closer inspection at.
Augmented reality has a wide array of applications in numerous industries and thanks to the rise of consumer smart devices and overall computing technology developments it presently has plenty of potential in the mainstream consumer space as well.
Both the areas where we certainly have seen lots of commercial development in augmented reality are education and gaming.
Both biggest mainstream computer game consoles, the Xbox and Playstation, have included augmented reality capabilities for the past two console generations. These game such as the Kinect (for the Xbox) and Playstation Eye or Camera (for that Playstation 3 and 4 respectively). Because you’re facing both camera as well as the screen within these implementations will be more like augmented reality mirrors, that you see yourself “in” the video game and can connect to game characters that look to remain a similar room when you.
Mobile augmented reality games will also be not rare, and can be found on smartphones, tablets and handheld consoles such as the Nintendo 3DS and Playstation Vita.
Seeing the potential for augmented reality in education isn’t hard. It’s being implemented in fields for example medicine where students can usually benefit from live 3D models. It’s possible to use existing learning material (for example pages from the textbook) as targets for augmented reality. When viewed through the lens of the smartphone you will see that picture of any engine animate within an engineering textbook or possibly a working 3D style of a beating heart that you could walk around of rotate manually.
In medical practice augmented reality can project information directly onto the body of the patient. For example, the Veinviewer system projects a genuine-time image of infrared vein scans directly to the patient’s skin. Creating the impression how the skin is transparent. This permits the clinician to “see” the veins directly.
Military use cases can also be quite clear, since soldiers wearing heads up displays (HUDs) are able to see information tagged onto objects in real life. Radar information, orders or any other relevant sensor data from devices around the network that will provide it. Enemy and friendly positions are of course also helpful to know. Augmented reality clearly includes a bright future in military applications.
Mobile phone devices specially the iPhone use augmented reality apps which enable you to view computer generated images that have been superimposed over actual images. A good example of it becomes an app which helps you to look for a restaurant: it will this by displaying restaurant signs/logos as you move in a certain direction.
Another useful sort of app is really a golf GPRS system which assists golfers around a course. It displays yardages for each of the 18 holes, shows in which the hazards are, e.g. bunkers and advice and support on enhancing your game. When you are golfer this app will suit your needs immensely – seek out the Golfscape Augmented Reality Rangefinder from the Apple store.
Augmented fact is also found in marketing and advertising as a technique of enhancing certain facets of a product in order to make it more appealing which will boost sales. This can be discussed in more detail in our augmented reality marketing article.
Conclusion
Augmented reality is probably going to worm its way into our daily lives increasingly more in the 21st century. Once wearable computers be more common it won’t be strange to view people getting together with and reacting to items that aren’t there from your perspective. Because of technologies including augmented reality the way you work together with computing devices and consider the divide between digital and analogue reality is probably going to change fundamentally. Nothing is stopping you experiencing augmented reality yourself today though. Just hop to your smartphone’s app store and search for “AR” apps. There are many to try, the majority of them free