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What is Augmented Reality?


 

What is Augmented Reality?

 

Augmented Reality (AR) is a variation of Virtual Environments (VE), or Virtual Reality as it is more commonly called. VE technologies completely immerse a user inside a synthetic environment. While immersed, the user cannot see the real world around him. In contrast, AR allows the user to see the real world, with virtual objects superimposed upon or composited with the real world. Therefore, AR supplements reality, rather than completely replacing it. Ideally, it would appear to the user that the virtual and real objects coexisted in the same space, similar to the effects achieved in the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Figure 1 shows an example of what this might look like. It shows a real desk with a real phone. Inside this room are also a virtual lamp and two virtual chairs. Note that the objects are combined in 3-D so that the virtual lamp covers the real table, and the real table covers parts of the two virtual chairs. AR can be thought of as the "middle ground" between VE (completely synthetic) and telepresence (completely real).

 

 

Real desk with virtual lamp and two virtual chairs.

 

 

Some researchers define AR in a way that requires the use of Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs). To avoid limiting AR to specific technologies, this survey defines AR as systems that have the following three characteristics:

 

1) Combines real and virtual

2) Interactive in real time

3) Registered in 3-D

 

This definition allows other technologies besides HMDs while retain the essential components of AR. For example, it does not include film or 2-D overlays. Films like "Jurassic Park" feature photorealistic virtual objects seamlessly blended with a real environment in 3-D, but they are not interactive media. 2-D virtual overlays on top of live video can be done at interactive rates, but the overlays are not combined with the real world in 3-D. However, this definition does allow monitor-based interfaces, monocular systems, see-through HMDs, and various other combining technologies.

 

Applications

 

Augmented reality has been explored for many applications, from gaming and entertainment to medicine, education, and business. Example application areas described below include archaeology, architecture, commerce, and education. Some of the earliest cited examples include augmented reality used to support surgery by providing virtual overlays to guide medical practitioners, to AR content for astronomy and welding.

 

Archaeology

 

AR has been used to aid archaeological research. By augmenting archaeological features onto the modern landscape, AR allows archaeologists to formulate possible site configurations from extant structures. Computer-generated models of ruins, buildings, landscapes, or even ancient people have been recycled into early archaeological AR applications. For example, implementing a system like VITA (Visual Interaction Tool for Archaeology) will allow users to imagine and investigate instant excavation results without leaving their homes. Each user can collaborate by mutually "navigating, searching, and viewing data". Hrvoje Benko, a researcher in the computer science department at Columbia University, points out that these particular systems and others like them can provide "3D panoramic images and 3D models of the site itself at different excavation stages" all the while organizing much of the data in a collaborative way that is easy to use. Collaborative AR systems supply multimodal interactions that combine the real world with virtual images of both environments.

 

Architecture

 

AR can aid in visualizing building projects. Computer-generated images of a structure can be superimposed onto a real-life local view of a property before the physical building is constructed there; this was demonstrated publicly by Trimble Navigation in 2004. AR can also be employed within an architect's workspace, rendering animated 3D visualizations of their 2D drawings. Architecture sight-seeing can be enhanced with AR applications, allowing users viewing a building's exterior to virtually see through its walls, viewing its interior objects and layout.

 

With continual improvements to GPS accuracy, businesses are able to use augmented reality to visualize georeferenced models of construction sites, underground structures, cables, and pipes using mobile devices. Augmented reality is applied to present new projects, solve on-site construction challenges, and enhance promotional materials. Examples include the Daqri Smart Helmet, an Android-powered hard hat used to create augmented reality for the industrial worker, including visual instructions, real-time alerts, and 3D mapping.

 

Following the Christchurch earthquake, the University of Canterbury released CityViewAR, which enabled city planners and engineers to visualize buildings that had been destroyed. This not only provided planners with tools to reference the previous cityscape, but it also served as a reminder of the magnitude of the resulting devastation, as entire buildings had been demolished.

 

Urban design and planning

 

AR systems are being used as collaborative tools for design and planning in the built environment. For example, AR can be used to create augmented reality maps, buildings, and data feeds projected onto tabletops for collaborative viewing by built environment professionals. Outdoor AR promises that designs and plans can be superimposed on the real world, redefining the remit of these professions to bring in-situ design into their process. Design options can be articulated on site, and appear closer to reality than traditional desktop mechanisms such as 2D maps and 3d models.

 

Education

 

In educational settings, AR has been used to complement a standard curriculum. Text, graphics, video, and audio may be superimposed into a student's real-time environment. Textbooks, flashcards, and other educational reading material may contain embedded "markers" or triggers that, when scanned by an AR device, produced supplementary information to the student rendered in a multimedia format. The 2015 Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality: 7th International Conference mentioned Google Glass as an example of augmented reality that can replace the physical classroom. First, AR technologies help learners engage in authentic exploration in the real world, and virtual objects such as texts, videos, and pictures are supplementary elements for learners to conduct investigations of real-world surroundings.

 

As AR evolves, students can participate interactively and interact with knowledge more authentically. Instead of remaining passive recipients, students can become active learners, able to interact with their learning environment. Computer-generated simulations of historical events allow students to explore and learning details of each significant area of the event site.

 

In higher education, Construct3D, a Studierstube system, allows students to learn mechanical engineering concepts, math, or geometry. Chemistry AR apps allow students to visualize and interact with the spatial structure of a molecule using a marker object held in their hand. Others have used HP Reveal, a free app, to create AR notecards for studying organic chemistry mechanisms or to create virtual demonstrations of how to use laboratory instrumentation. Anatomy students can visualize different systems of the human body in three dimensions. Using AR as a tool to learn anatomical structures has been shown to increase learner knowledge and provide intrinsic benefits, such as increased engagement and learner immersion.

 

Industrial manufacturing

 

AR is used to substitute paper manuals with digital instructions which are overlaid on the manufacturing operator's field of view, reducing the mental effort required to operate. AR makes machine maintenance efficient because it gives operators direct access to a machine's maintenance history. Virtual manuals help manufacturers adapt to rapidly-changing product designs, as digital instructions are more easily edited and distributed compared to physical manuals.

 

Digital instructions increase operator safety by removing the need for operators to look at a screen or manual away from the working area, which can be hazardous. Instead, the instructions are overlaid on the working area. The use of AR can increase operators' feeling of safety when working near high-load industrial machinery by giving operators additional information on a machine's status and safety functions, as well as hazardous areas of the workspace.

 

Visual art

 

AR applied in the visual arts allows objects or places to trigger artistic multidimensional experiences and interpretations of reality.

 

Augmented reality can aid in the progression of visual art in museums by allowing museum visitors to view artwork in galleries in a multidimensional way through their phone screens. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has created an exhibit in their art museum showcasing AR features that viewers can see using an app on their smartphone. The museum has developed its personal app, called MoMAR Gallery, that museum guests can download and use in the augmented reality specialized gallery in order to view the museum's paintings in a different way. This allows individuals to see hidden aspects and information about the paintings, and to be able to have an interactive technological experience with artwork as well.

 

AR technology was also used in Nancy Baker Cahill's "Margin of Error" and "Revolutions," the two public art pieces she created for the 2019 Desert X exhibition.

 

AR technology aided the development of eye tracking technology to translate a disabled person's eye movements into drawings on a screen.

 

AR technology can also be used to place objects in the user's environment. A Danish artist, Olafur Eliasson, is placing objects like burning suns, extraterrestrial rocks, and rare animals, into the user's environment.

 

Fitness

 

AR hardware and software for use in fitness include smart glasses made for biking and running, with performance analytics and map navigation projected onto the user's field of vision, and boxing, martial arts, and tennis, where users remain aware of their physical environment for safety. Fitness-related games and software include Pokemon Go and Jurassic World Alive.

 

Human-computer interaction

 

Human–computer interaction (HCI) is an interdisciplinary area of computing that deals with the design and implementation of systems that interact with people. Researchers in HCI come from a number of disciplines, including computer science, engineering, design, human factor, and social science, with a shared goal to solve problems in the design and the use of technology so that it can be used more easily, effectively, efficiently, safely, and with satisfaction.

 

Industrial design

 

AR allows industrial designers to experience a product's design and operation before completion. Volkswagen has used AR for comparing calculated and actual crash test imagery. AR has been used to visualize and modify car body structure and engine layout. It has also been used to compare digital mock-ups with physical mock-ups to find discrepancies between them.

 

 

Healthcare planning, practice, and education

 

One of the first applications of augmented reality was in healthcare, particularly to support the planning, practice, and training of surgical procedures. As far back as 1992, enhancing human performance during surgery was a formally stated objective when building the first augmented reality systems at U.S. Air Force laboratories. Since 2005, a device called a near-infrared vein finder that films subcutaneous veins, processes, and projects the image of the veins onto the skin has been used to locate veins. AR provides surgeons with patient monitoring data in the style of a fighter pilot's heads-up display and allows patient imaging records, including functional videos, to be accessed and overlaid. Examples include a virtual X-ray view based on prior tomography or on real-time images from ultrasound and confocal microscopy probes, visualizing the position of a tumor in the video of an endoscope, or radiation exposure risks from X-ray imaging devices. AR can enhance viewing a fetus inside a mother's womb. Siemens, Karl Storz, and IRCAD have developed a system for laparoscopic liver surgery that uses AR to view sub-surface tumors and vessels. AR has been used for cockroach phobia treatment and to reduce the fear of spiders. Patients wearing augmented reality glasses can be reminded to take medications. Augmented reality can be very helpful in the medical field. It could be used to provide crucial information to a doctor or surgeon without having them take their eyes off the patient. On 30 April 2015 Microsoft announced the Microsoft HoloLens, their first attempt at augmented reality. The HoloLens has advanced through the years and is capable of projecting holograms for near infrared fluorescence-based image-guided surgery. As augmented reality advances, it finds increasing applications in healthcare. Augmented reality and similar computer based-utilities are being used to train medical professionals. In healthcare, AR can be used to provide guidance during diagnostic and therapeutic interventions e.g. during surgery. Magee et al. for instance, describe the use of augmented reality for medical training in simulating ultrasound-guided needle placement. 

 

Flight training

 

Building on decades of perceptual-motor research in experimental psychology, researchers at the Aviation Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign used augmented reality in the form of a flight path in the sky to teach flight students how to land an airplane using a flight simulator. An adaptive augmented schedule in which students were shown the augmentation only when they departed from the flight path proved to be a more effective training intervention than a constant schedule. Flight students taught to land in the simulator with adaptive augmentation learned to land a light aircraft more quickly than students with the same amount of landing training in the simulator but with constant augmentation or without any augmentation.

 

Military

 

An interesting early application of AR occurred when Rockwell International created video map overlays of satellite and orbital debris tracks to aid in space observations at the Air Force Maui Optical System. In their 1993 paper "Debris Correlation Using the Rockwell WorldView System" the authors describe the use of map overlays applied to video from space surveillance telescopes. The map overlays indicated the trajectories of various objects in geographic coordinates. This allowed telescope operators to identify satellites, and also to identify and catalog potentially dangerous space debris.

 

Starting in 2003 the US Army integrated the SmartCam3D augmented reality system into the Shadow Unmanned Aerial System to aid sensor operators using telescopic cameras to locate people or points of interest. The system combined fixed geographic information including street names, points of interest, airports, and railroads with live video from the camera system. The system offered a "picture in picture" mode that allows it to show a synthetic view of the area surrounding the camera's field of view. This helps solve a problem in which the field of view is so narrow that it excludes important context, as if "looking through a soda straw". The system displays real-time friend/foe/neutral location markers blended with live video, providing the operator with improved situational awareness.

 

As of 2010, Korean researchers are looking to implement mine-detecting robots in the military. The proposed design for such a robot includes a mobile platform that is like a track that would be able to cover uneven distances including stairs. The robot's mine detection sensor would include a combination of metal detectors and ground-penetrating radar to locate mines or IEDs. This unique design would be immeasurably helpful in saving the lives of Korean soldiers.

 

Researchers at USAF Research Lab (Calhoun, Draper, et al.) found an approximately two-fold increase in the speed at which UAV sensor operators found points of interest using this technology. This ability to maintain geographic awareness quantitatively enhances mission efficiency. The system is in use on the US Army RQ-7 Shadow and the MQ-1C Gray Eagle Unmanned Aerial Systems.

 

In combat, AR can serve as a networked communication system that renders useful battlefield data onto a soldier's goggles in real-time. From the soldier's viewpoint, people and various objects can be marked with special indicators to warn of potential dangers. Virtual maps and 360° view camera imaging can also be rendered to aid a soldier's navigation and battlefield perspective, and this can be transmitted to military leaders at a remote command center. The combination of 360° view camera visualization and AR can be used on board combat vehicles and tanks as a circular review system.

 

 

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