Augumented Reality

What is augmented reality (AR)?

Augmented reality (AR) is the integration of digital information with the user's environment in real time. Unlike virtual reality (VR), which creates a totally artificial environment, AR users experience a real-world environment with generated perceptual information overlaid on top of it.

Augmented reality is used to either visually change natural environments in some way or to provide additional information to users. The primary benefit of AR is that it manages to blend digital and three-dimensional (3D) components with an individual's perception of the real world. AR has a variety of uses, from helping in decision-making to entertainment.

AR delivers visual elements, sound and other sensory information to the user through a device like a smartphone or glasses. This information is overlaid onto the device to create an interwoven experience where digital information alters the user's perception of the real world. The overlaid information can be added to an environment or mask part of the natural environment.

Boeing Computer Services Research employee Thomas Caudell coined the term augmented reality in 1990 to describe how the head-mounted displays that electricians use when assembling complicated wiring harnesses worked. One of the first commercial applications of augmented reality technology was the yellow first down marker that began appearing in televised football games sometime in 1998. Today, Google Glass, smartphone games and heads-up displays (HUDs) in car windshields are the most well-known consumer AR products. But the technology is also used in many industries, including healthcare, public safety, gas and oil, tourism and marketing.

How does augmented reality work?

Augmented reality can be delivered in a variety of formats, including within smartphones, tablets and glasses. AR delivered through contact lenses is also being developed. The technology requires hardware components, such as a processor, sensors, a display and input devices. Mobile devices already typically have this hardware available, with sensors including cameras, accelerometers, Global Positioning System (GPS) and solid-state compasses. This helps make AR more accessible to the everyday user. A GPS is used to pinpoint the user's location, and its compass is used to detect device orientation, for example.

Sophisticated AR programs used by the military for training can also include machine vision, object recognition and gesture recognition. AR can be computationally intensive, so if a device lacks processing power, data processing can be offloaded to a different machine.

Augmented reality apps are written in special 3D programs that enable developers to tie animation or contextual digital information in the computer program to an augmented reality marker in the real world. When a computing device's AR app or browser plugin receives digital information from a known marker, it begins to execute the marker's code and layer the correct image or images.

Examples of AR

Examples of AR include the following:

Target app. The Target retail app feature called See it in Your Space enables users to take a photo of a space in their home and digitally view an object, like a picture on the wall or a chair, to see how it will look there.

Apple Measure app. The Measure app on Apple iOS acts like a tape measure by enabling users to select two or more points in their environment and measure the distance between them.

Snapchat. Snapchat filters use AR to overlay a filter or mask over the user's Snap or picture.

Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go is a popular mobile AR game that uses the player's GPS to detect where Pokemon creatures appear in the user's surrounding environment for them to catch.

Google Glass. Google Glass is Google's first commercial attempt at a glasses-based AR system. This small wearable computer enables users to work hands-free. Companies such as DHL and DB Schenker use Google Glass and third-party software to enable frontline workers to be more efficient when it comes to global supply chain logistics and customized shipping. Google is also working on another pair of glasses in 2022 that's designed to overlay a live transcription or translation of what another person says in text.

U.S. Army. The U.S. Army uses AR in an eyepiece called Tactical Augmented Reality (TAR). TAR mounts onto the soldier's helmet and aids in locating another soldier's position.

Future of AR technology

AR technology continues to grow as the popularity and familiarization of apps and games like Pokemon Go or retail store AR apps increase. The expansion of 5G networks may make it easier to support cloud-based augmented reality experiences, for example, by providing AR applications with higher data speeds and lower latency.

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