Augmented Reality

The Rise of Technology

Augmented reality can enhance our perception of reality and make the invisible visible.

-Helen Papagiannis, author of “Augmented Human”

Introduction

Let’s unpack the mind-blowing technology that is revolutionizing the present and the future i.e Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality (AR) is a subset of a rather broader spectrum, which is Immersive technology. Immersive Technology comprising of augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality are amongst the fastest growing and most fascinating technologies in the modern-day. To put it in a nutshell immersive technologies create or extend reality and this is done by immersing the user in a digital environment.

What is Augmented Reality?

Theoretically, Augmented Reality projects computer generated augmentation on top of reality helping us perform tasks better and efficiently. Augmented reality, which falls in between reality and virtual reality, is a method used to render real-world data and present it intuitively so that virtual elements resemble the present reality to an extent. But the revolution doesn’t stop here. Have you ever tried to catch a Pokémon using Pokémon Go or made a video of your bitmoji dancing on the top of your table on Snapchat? AR. makes these possible.

In layman terms, if we give a deep thought about our existence, we will realise that our body and mind exist in a mix of space and time, which we perceive as “Reality”. Moreover, nowadays we have an option to exist in a digital/virtual environment that is a mix of computer-generated space and time, which we call Virtual Reality. Between these two extremes, various other types of reality exist which is a result of the interweaving of Reality and Virtual Reality to varying degrees. It can be concluded that Augmented Reality as a concept implies Reality with a certain amount of Virtual Reality added for extra flavour, but not so much as to overwhelm it, as our main motive is to bring the virtual elements to the physical world and not the other way around

A brief history of Augmented Reality

You might think AR is a new technology; well, on the contrary, it has been around for numerous decades. Augmented reality was first achieved, to some extent, by a cinematographer called Morton Heilig in 1957. He invented the Sensorama, which delivered visuals, sounds, vibrations, and smells to the viewer. Of course, it wasn’t computer-controlled but it was the first example of an attempt at adding additional data to an experience.

Then in 1968, Ivan Sutherland developed the first ever AR gadget called The Sword of Damocles, this system used computer graphics to show users simple wireframe drawings.

The first properly functioning AR system was probably the one developed at USAF Armstrong’s Research Lab by Louis Rosenberg in 1992. This was called Virtual Fixtures and was an incredibly complex robotic system, which was designed to compensate for the lack of high-speed 3D graphics processing power in the early 90s. It enabled the overlay of sensory information on a workspace to improve human productivity

From the onset, people are constantly working to improve and further develop this promising technology and there were many breakthroughs in augmented reality since the earliest attempts.

The Current State of Play in Augmented Reality

In recent years, the rapid development of augmented reality technology has aroused people’s high attention. Augmented reality is achieved through a variety of technological innovations; these can be implemented on their own or in conjunction with each other to create augmented reality. They include:

General hardware components: The processor, the display, the sensors, and input devices, A typical smartphone contains a processor, a display accelerometer, GPS, camera, microphone, etc. and contains all the hardware required to be an AR device. However, there are quite challenges which we will discuss ahead.
Displays: Apart from a typical monitor, which is perfectly capable of displaying AR data there, are other systems such as optical projection systems, head-mounted displays, virtual retinal displays etcetera.
Sensors and input devices: GPS, gyroscopes, accelerometers, compasses, RFID, wireless sensors, touch recognition, speech recognition, eye tracking, and peripherals are the elements your devices need to have to be an AR device.
Software: The majority of development for AR will be in developing further software to take advantage of the hardware capabilities. There is already an Augmented Reality Mark-up Language (ARML), which is being used to standardize XML grammar for virtual reality. Several software development kits (SDK) also offer simple environments for AR development. There is an open-sourced library focused on AR named ARTOOLKIT which can be used to build your own AR-based app. Google has also developed a platform for building augmented reality experiences for Android and iOS using ARCore and different available APIs.

Applications of Augmented Reality

There is a good chance that you are benefited from AR in your day-to-day life and it is nigh impossible that you haven’t come across AR in your lifetime. From camera filters to training future surgeons augmented reality is starting to infiltrate many industries of our society today.

Looking at some most popular applications of AR, we have a location-based AR app, Google maps which plays digital direction on top of the real world and shows you where to walk.

Another app from Google, which is based on AR, is Google Lens. It enhances the search experience. Herein you don’t have to type in your query anymore, instead just open the app and aim it at what you want to search. Google lens will identify the object and give you all the essential details about it.

Next up is one of those parking assistants installed in your cars that you might have used. While reversing your car you can look at the screen for proper and accurate directions, using computer generated elements that gauge distances and trajectories in real time! As fascinating as it might seem, there’s a high chance this will be useless as self-driving and self-parking cars are all the rage now, nonetheless, these displays are an awesome piece of AR.

Augmented Reality has also seeped into gaming and camera apps, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you must’ve heard of Snapchat and Pokémon GO.

Each year more and more AR and VR games and applications are added on the Playstore/Appstore, especially AR-based games, as they don’t require additional expensive hardware.

Challenges faced

The progress in the domain of AR seems to be at an impasse because of the same challenges faced decades ago:

High-end processor
High-definition portable displays
Portable power supplies A fully-fledged AR app can have your mobile’s battery exhausted in no time. And here we all are, already pestered by our smartphone’s battery not lasting long enough. So our smartphones don’t stand a chance to run these proficient AR-based apps.

Similarly, a high-definition display which is portable too, is yet in progress. The displays of our smartphones have gotten significantly better with time but still don’t meet the needs. If we meet the criteria of a high-definition display, then we’ve to compromise on portability. The relation here goes as; portability is inversely proportional to the display quality.

And lastly, the issue of processing or computing power of our devices. The mobile phones of today have greater computing power than the huge computers in old times. In this domain too, there have been remarkable improvements, but not enough to keep up with the complex AR and VR scenes as smoothly as a high processing gaming computer.

Conclusion

Augmented reality has come a long way from a science-fiction concept to a science-based reality. AR has seen raging in popularity over the past few years and the revolution is not stopping any time soon. AR or augmented reality has gone from pipe dream to reality in just over a century. There are many AR applications in use or under development today, however - the concept will only take off universally when UX designers think about how they can integrate AR with daily life to improve productivity, efficiency, or quality of experiences. Moreover, to get the best out of AR, comprehensive development in multiple domains of technology is required to overcome the challenges we discussed above. There is unlimited potential for AR and the possibilities are endless, the big question is - how will it be unlocked?