Applications of augmented reality

Why augmented reality? In today's world, we are flooded with vast amounts of information through 24/7 media, internet connectivity, and mobile devices. The problem is not whether we have enough information, but that we have too much. The challenge is how to filter, process, and use valuable information and ignore redundant, irrelevant, and incorrect information. This is explained by Schmalsteig and Hollerer in their book, Augmented Reality, Principles, and Practice (Addison Wesley, 2016):

"augmented reality holds the promise of creating direct, automatic, and actionable links between the physical world and electronic information. It provides a simple and immediate user interface to an electronically enhanced physical world. The immense potential of augmented reality as a paradigm-shifting user interface metaphor becomes apparent when we review the most recent few milestones in human-computer interaction: the emergence of the World Wide Web, the social web, and the mobile device revolution." - Augmented Reality, Principles and Practice, Schmalstieg & Mollerer

What kinds of applications can benefit from this? Well, just about every human endeavor that presently uses digital information of any kind. Here are a few examples that we will further illustrate as actual projects throughout this book.

Business marketing

AR markers printed on product packaging with a companion app could provide additional details about the product, testimonials, or marketing media to augment the product. AR business cards are a way to show off how cool you are. See Chapter 4, Augmented Business Cards, for more details. Just as you may see QR codes in advertising today to take you to a website, AR markers in advertising may be a thing in the near future.

Education

For years, AR has been used in children's books to bring stories to life. Older students studying more serious subjects may find more augmentation of their educational textbooks and media resources, bringing more immersive and interactive content to the curriculum. In Chapter 5, AR Solar System, we will build a sample educational project, a simulation of our Solar System.

Industrial training

AR-based how-to-fix-it apps have been demonstrated to improve technical training and reduce mistakes. How many reams of paper training manuals have already been digitized? But seriously, just converting them into PDFs or web pages is only a little bit better.

Instructional videos go a bit further. With AR, we can have the benefits of more interactive 3D graphics, personal coaching, and hands-on tutorials. In Chapter 7, Augmenting the Instruction Manual, we will illustrate techniques for building an industrial training in AR, showing you how to change a tire on your car.

Retail

Have you seen the video of a woman standing in front of an smart mirror trying on clothes, interacting with the system using hand gestures? For example, see Oak Labs at http://www.oaklabs.is/. The Wayfair online furniture store uses AR to help you visualize new furniture in your home before you purchase (https://www.wayfair.com). In Chapter 8, Room Decoration with AR, we will build a little app that will let you decorate your room with framed photos.

Gaming

Can you say Pokémon? Of course, there's more to AR gaming than that, but let's give credit where it's due. Ninantic did bring AR in to popular culture with it. We won't describe all the possibilities of AR-based gaming. But, in Chapter 9, Poke The Ball Game, we will build a little AR ball game.

Others

In engineering and other design disciplines, 3D artists and CAD engineers still build stuff in a 3D on 2D screen with a mouse. When is that going to change? It's time to get your hands into the virtual world and make things happen.

Music, cinema, storytelling, journalism, and so on will all benefit from the popular adoption of augmented reality. The possibilities are as infinite as the human imagination.