Augmented reality (AR) is the integration of digital information with live video or the user's environment in real time.
One of the first commercial applications of AR was graphic displays superimposed over televised sports, such as the trail tracking the puck in play in a hockey game or the yellow first down line in football. More recent AR systems may superimpose graphics over a cell phone image or project an interactive display on a real world surface.
The Layar browser, for example, displays information about local businesses and services over their locations on a phone's camera image. Wikitude, a browser for phones running the Android operating system, displays information, mostly drawn from Wikipedia, about the user's current environment over images of that environment seen through the phone's display.
MIT graduate student Pranav Mistry developed an augmented reality system he calls SixthSense. The device hangs around the user's neck, like a traditional camera. Digital information can be projected onto any available surface. The AR application is based on gesture recognition. For example, when the user makes a frame shape with his fingers, the camera takes a picture; drawing the @ symbol in the air activates email. To make a phone call, the user can project a virtual keypad and dial a number. SixthSense is, essentially, a Web-enabled mobile phone and an LED projector. Mistry's system is made from off-the-shelf hardware and cost $350.
See Pattie Maes narrate a video demo of SixthSense at TED:
Some of the many actual or potential uses of augmented reality:
The changing maps behind weather reporters.
A navigational display embedded in the windshield of a car.
Data from medical tests and scans displayed over the relevant areas on a patient.
Visual displays and audio guidance for complex tasks, such as surgery or manufacturing.
Images of historical recreations integrated with the current environment.
A display in a pilot's helmet that allows the pilot to, in effect, see through the aircraft.
Mobile marketing involving product information displayed over that product or its location.
Video games with digital elements blended into the user's environment.
Virtually trying on clothes through a webcam while online shopping.
Displaying information about a person by pointing a phone at them.
AR applications are often based on smartphone displays, head-mounted gear, eyeglasses or contact lenses to overlay the user's view with information. Current implementations of AR usually involve computer graphics but integrated sounds, smells and tactile information are also possible.
AR employs a number of sophisticated technologies including machine vision, object recognition and gesture recognition. AR applications for smartphones use a device's global positioning system (GPS) to pinpoint the user's location and its compass to detect device orientation. With that information, it's possible to make an educated guess at what the user is looking at. Information can then be drawn associated with those locations.
Boeing researcher Thomas Caudell coined the term augmented reality in 1990, in reference to a head-mounted display used to guide workers as they put together electrical wiring harnesses for aircraft equipment.
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