AR 101 — A Brief Summary (Part 1)
What is Augmented Reality? What are its features basic? What are some of Augmented Reality problems and challenges?
In this article, you will find:
- AR definition,
- Basic features, and
- AR problems and challenges.
Augmented Reality Definition
Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that overlays digital content (graphics, text, audio, and video) on real-world images using mobile devices, PCs, or glasses, which have an integrated camera and specialized software (Papagiannis, 2017).
Augmented Reality must be characterized mainly by (Azuma, 1997)
- combining real and virtual objects,
- being interactive in real-time, and
- aligning 3D objects.
Some AR Types
Augmented Reality can be applied mainly on markers, 3d objects, flat surfaces, and faces.
Advantages
AR’s advantages are the tools it provides for various tasks in scientific, industrial, and entertainment areas (Peddie, 2017).
Read more here:
Brief history
Some important AR facts:
- 60s: Engineer Ivan Sutherland, created the SketchPad project, a system based on what is now known as computer graphics, and created a see-through to present 3D graphics (Krevelen, 2010)(Jaimini, 2016).
- 70s: Group of researchers at different organizations, such as NASA, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of North Carolina, continued research in computer graphics and virtual reality (Krevelen, 2010).
- 80s: American Air Force developed a high-cost Super Cockpit plane simulator that mixed virtual and physical elements through an optical vision helmet (Krevelen, 2010).
- 90s: The scientists Caudell and Mizell designated the term Augmented Reality when developing an experimental system to help workers put together wiring harnesses (Krevelen, 2010).
- 2000s: First outdoor mobile AR game ARQuake. The FLARToolKit software was announced for free use, ported by the Adobe Flash platform. Google launched Google Glass, and Microsoft launched HoloLens, a head-mounted display (Krevelen, 2010)(Jaimini, 2016).
- 2010s: Companies are investing in the potential of this area like Google with ARCore and Apple with ARKit (Papagiannis, 2017).
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Basic Features
Every AR system must (Craig, 2013):
- detect the presence of one or more objects of interest,
- align their positions, and
- continuously track their movements.
Problems and Challenges
Some problems in Augmented Reality applications can be influenced by different factors (Craig, 2013)(Shi, 2015):
- Hardware resources and conditions (energy efficiency, portability, data storage, and processing capacity),
- Lighting (variations or light effects),
- Motion blur (noise image or fast motion blur),
- Scale or distance (limited range between camera and actual object), and
- Latency (system delays).
For those looking for all the articles in our AR 101 series. Here is the link.
References
- Helen Papagiannis. Augmented Human: How Technology Is Shaping the New Reality. O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2017.
- Ronald Azuma. A survey of augmented reality. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 6(4):355–385, 1997.
- Peddie, J. (2017), Augmented Reality: Where We Will All Live, Springer International Publishing.
- A.B. Craig. Understanding Augmented Reality: Concepts and Applications. Elsevier Science, 2013.
- Bowen Shi, Ji Yang, Zhanpeng Huang, and Pan Hui. Offloading Guidelines
for Augmented Reality Applications on Wearable Devices. Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Multimedia, pages 1271{1274, 2015. - U. Jaimini and M. Dhaniwala, “Augmented reality cognitive paradigm,” 2016 3rd International Conference on Computing for Sustainable Global Development (INDIACom), New Delhi, 2016, pp. 2368–2372.
- D.W.F. van Krevelen and R. Poelman. A survey of Augmented Reality Technologies, Applications and Limitations. The International Journal of Virtual Reality, 9(2):1{20, 2010. ISSN 1029–242X.
