Augmented Reality: The upgrade to Virtual Reality (VR)

Augmented reality (AR) is the integration of digital information with the user's environment in real time, previously VR used to create a completely artificial environment. AR users experience a real-world exposure 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 that range from helping in decision-making to providing the entertainment.

AR delivers visual elements like 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 is added to the natural environment.

The concept of Augmented Reality goes back 1990 when Boeing Computer Services Research employee Thomas Caudell coined the term augmented reality to describe how the head-mounted displays that electricians use when assembling complicated wiring harnesses worked.

In present day the 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, oil, tourism and marketing.

The technology Behind AR: Augmented reality can be incorporated in a variety of formats which include 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 included in cameras, accelerometers, Global Positioning System (GPS) and solid-state compasses. This helps make AR more accessible to the everyday user.

Machine vision, object recognition and gesture recognition are some sophisticated AR programs that are currently being utilised by the US military force for training.

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 then it begins to execute the marker's code and layer the correct image or images.

Differences between AR and VR: VR is a virtual environment created with software and presented to users in such a way that their brain accepts the virtual world as a real environment. Virtual reality is primarily experienced through a headset with sight and sound.

The biggest difference between AR and VR is that augmented reality uses the existing real-world environment and puts virtual information on top of it. On the other hand VR completely immerses users in a virtually rendered environment but doesn’t have any fragment of real world.

AR & VR differ fundamentally in their functionality: The objective of VR is that it puts the user in a new simulated environment while AR places the user in a sort of mixed reality with super imposed elements.

The devices used to accomplish this are different. VR uses VR headsets that fit over the user's head and present them with simulated visual and audio information. AR devices are less restrictive and typically include devices like phones, glasses, projections and HUDs in cars.

In VR, people are placed inside a 3D environment in which they can move around and interact with the generated environment. However in AR the users are grounded in the real-world environment overlaying virtual data as a visual layer within the environment.

AR can be used in the following ways:

• Consumers can use a store's online app to see how products such as furniture, clothing & make up will look in their preferred home setting or face, Maybelline is currently using this feature.
• AR can be used to overlay a virtual game in the real world or enable users to animate their faces in different and creative ways on social media. Pokemon Go is an excellent example how this works.
• AR can be used to overlay a route to the user's destination over a live view of a road to guide as a GPS system which is much more efficient. AR used for navigation can also display information about local businesses in the user's vicinity.
• Mobile devices can use AR to measure different 3D points in the user's environment. Apple Measure is an example of this.
• AR can help architects visualize a building project. This is helpful and cost effective.
• Data can be displayed on a vehicle's windshield that indicates destination directions, distances, weather and road conditions.
• AR has aided archaeological research by helping archeologists reconstruct sites. 3D models help museum visitors and future archeologists experience an excavation site as if they were there.

Some other relavent Examples of AR include the following:
Snapchat: Snapchat filters use AR to overlay a filter or mask over the user's Snap or picture.
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.
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.

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