Augmented Reality

I was surfing the web to find a topic for my technology presentation, and I suddenly bumped upon “Augmented Reality”. I was fascinated by this technology and decided to delve deeper on it to present it to my class.

This is what I presented to my class:

Augmented Reality: After seeing the movie Terminator, many of us would have imagined,how nice it would be to visually scan objects in real world and obtain information about the same. But,Today,we have that technology in place which helps us to do so. This is called Augmented Reality.

What is “Augmented Reality?”

It is the technology that  superimposes digital information, graphics, audio,pictures and videos onto real world environment.

Basically,we have used camera in our phones to capture images and videos. Now,we can even use the camera for retrieving and displaying digital information of real world environment.

Technologies mostly used in A.R:
A camera to view the real world.
A GPS system if it’s a location based AR
An image processing program
An internet connection to send and receive information
A display to view the augmented information.

How does it work?

The camera captures the world as seen through its lens and shows it on the screen. The GPS and the compass determines the exact location. Image Processing takes place and digital information is retrieved over a mobile Internet connection and augmented on the mobile screen.

Where is Augmented Reality used Today?

1> Yelp :Yelp is an augmented reality app used in iphone and android based phones. Turning on the app,shows you nearby places you are searching for like restaurants,grocery stores,hospitals, twitter or facebook friends,building,houses for rent etc.

Suppose you are searching for restaurants, when you turn on the yelp app on your iphone,you can see names of few resturants displayed on your screen. When you click on one restaurant,it shows you the details of that perticular restaurant like ratings,reviews,menu etc.

I actually took out my iphone and ended up showing demo of “Yelp” app  to scan for restaurants and thereby illustrating Augmented Reality during my presentation.

Video showing usage of Yelp app on iphone!

2>Layar: It is another app with similar functionality used in iPhone, and phones using Google’s Android operating system.

3>Wikitude: an Android mobile app that displays digital information from wikipedia onto the real worl environment.It is described on its website as “a mobile travel guide.

4>Education:Augmented reality systems in combination with other technologies such as WiFi could also be used to provide instant information to its users. like deeper knowledge to students when they look at things.. eg:formation of clouds,structure of buildings etc.

5>Gaming and entertainment: To give the users, real environments as backdrops for his game and to make the user’s senses perceive that he truly is one of the characters in the game.

6> Military: providing field soldiers crucial information about their surroundings as well as friendly troops and enemy movements in their particular area.
Sources: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/augmented_reality_the_web_present_and_future_scena.php

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/21/augmented-reality-iphone-advertising

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