Augmented reality (AR) has become a major part of our world. It’s used in our day-to-day lives for anything from gaming to training, medical diagnostics, and educational opportunities, to finding the nearest ATM and navigating the city. Augmented Reality bridges the digital and physical worlds, allowing us to see the environment around us while naturally interfacing with digital elements too.
What is Augmented Reality?
Augmented Reality (AR) is an advanced technology that blends digital and physical elements, allowing people to interact with the surrounding environment while viewing 3D images, videos, audio, and other online information. AR experiences are built on top of the real-world environment, literally adding virtual elements to a person’s field of view or auditory field. By augmenting our senses, AR enhances our experience of the environment, with computer-generated content that appears to be part of our physical reality.
AR differs from Virtual Reality (VR) in that it does not completely replace the physical world, but rather augments it with computer-generated content. However, the two technologies are often used in combination for truly breath-taking, and interactive, immersive user experiences.
How Does Augmented Reality Work?
Augmented reality works by blending digital data with the environment to which we’re exposed. To do this, the technology uses elements of both hardware and software, plus data from the physical environment, to generate images, video, text, 3D models, and other content. This information is then projected into the user’s field of view and provides a captivating experience.
The hardware components of an AR system include special lenses, filters, mirrors, GPS sensors, and accelerometers, which use physical data from the environment to deliver interactive and meaningful content. The software portion of the system utilizes advanced computer vision algorithms to “recognize” the physical environment and identify sources of data. Once the object or source is identified, the appropriate augmented content is created and delivered.
What are the Benefits of Augmented Reality?
The benefits of augmented reality are vast, transforming industries across the board. In health care, for example, AR can provide real-time guidance for medical procedures, allow for virtual visits that supplement physical ones, and even serve as a medical tool to screen for potential problems. Similarly, AR can be used in the education sector to create interactive and cost-effective learning experiences. In manufacturing and logistics, AR-enabled devices can provide workers with live data from anywhere in the world, speeding up the production process and creating efficiencies of time and resources.
Finally, businesses of all sizes can benefit from AR applications for marketing, customer engagement, and more. Not to mention, the technology drives product innovation and development, providing a platform for experimentation and discovery.
Where Is Augmented Reality Going?
Augmented reality has been around since the ‘90s, but its potential is so vast that the technology continues to grow and evolve. AR experiences are becoming increasingly interactive and engaging, blurring the lines between the physical and digital worlds. As AR continues to progress and interactivity grows ever deeper, the world around us will become a much more engaging, immersive, and enriching environment.