2 May 2013
Insight
The colonisation of virtual world has already gained momentum. A variety of people these days move into their remote and small chambers of social networks and dive into the ocean of information with no shores. Unfortunately, absolute majority of them still have to face reality every day. Then iPhone helps. iPad helps. iPod helps too. PSP handheld device helps. Definitely.
The real world is way too boring for many people. By making a real world a playground for the virtual world, we can make the real world much more interesting. to New York Times says Daniel Sanchez-Crespo, who is the project leader at Novarama, a game developer based in Barcelona.
So, have you ever dreamed of an invisible friend? Be honest. In order to improve a life on the Earth, Novarama has developed a game Invizimals. It allows a player to choose the reality populated with invisible creatures that can interact with each other. Doesn't that sound awesome?
It is only one of the examples how to augment the reality. For the first time this concept was used more than a hundred years ago by Tom Claudell, a researcher at aircraft manufacturer Boeing. The early definition of Augmented Reality referred to the collision of virtual and physical reality, where digital visuals are blended into the real world to enhance our perceptions.
Today Augmented Reality (or AR) is treated as the technological revolution or, as Helen Papagiannis, the Chief Innovation Officer at Infinity Augmented Reality Inc., calls it - the new era in visual culture. The basic idea of Augmented Reality relies on superimposing graphics, audio, video and other sensory enhancements over a real-world environment at real-time.
And now... Just imagine yourself, standing on the roof of the building somewhere by the river in Brooklyn, facing Manhattan. Then you take your iPhone and when you look to the skyline of the East River, using a screen of your phone, there are Twin Brothers standing again. Like phoenixes out of the ashes.
Project 101 Stories offers to reconstruct reality back in the early September of 2001. By the way, if you are obsessed with the past, you can support them at platform that funds the future - Kickstarter.com.Television has been using it since they adapted a format of weather visualisations. For 4 years already the Dutch based company Layar has been making a casual life of people in Amsterdam easier. It actually turns into obsession, because the company count 30 million downloads. So, using their app and a cell phone, people can look through the camera and find out all the necessary information about the closest restaurants, A.T.M.s and even available jobs, displayed on the buildings that provide them. It is like doing your homework on a way to the classes.
As far as technologies are being developed so fast, such kind of Augmented Reality apps become more habitual than shocking.
The thing that particularly interests us is the import of 3D models into Augmented Reality applications. London based 3D technology company Inition has already merged these two technologies together. They have developed an augmented reality iPad app, providing a possibility for the architects to take a 3D-printed scale model and to look inside them. The application serves as a visualisation tool to explore how their buildings will look at night or reveal their structure and services. The method has already received a definition: augmented 3D-printing. Director of the company Andy Millns told that 3D-printed models have benefits and augmented reality has other benefits, so we thought wed bring the two together to get the best of both.
Inition develops "augmented 3D printing" for architects from Dezeen on Vimeo.
Obviously, this case is not unique. There are no doubts that 3D technology will be fully integrated in the process of augmenting reality. Munich-based Metaio works in this field for 10 years already, specializing in making software for Augmented Reality applications using 3D content. Their software includes tools to create your personal augmented reality.
For example, one of them allows a user to create and publish his scenarios and experiences within minutes. All that is required: 3D content, videos, audio, or websites to find any form of printed medium or 3D map. At the moment anyone is able to create own Augmented Reality application and share it with others by saying Welcome to my world!.
But there are some real success stories created with Metaio technology. Atelier Pfister calls to plan your own environment. Of course, it steals some satisfaction out of shopping process, but definitely saves from pushing furniture from one place to another. The app allows a user to view and select already preprocessed in 3D designer products and locate them in your room, having only a picture of it.
Inition develops "augmented 3D printing" for architects from Dezeen on Vimeo.
Due to the shorter product life cycles, rising complexity in automotive construction and design, there is a need to reduce time and cost. Ease of comparison between actual prototypes and the CAD 3D models is one of the keys to it. In combination with standard measurement devices, for example FARO measuring arms, metaio Engineer creates the ability to superimpose virtual 3D models directly onto the actual image of the related prototype. And that is just the very beginning.
Thomas Alt, co-founder and CEO at Metaio, says that In 2014 augmented reality applications will be on every smartphone. Indeed, it sounds like a challenge thrown to the reality.
This industry is growing as fast as impossible. According to American information technology research and advisory firm Gartner.Inc, there is only one obvious truth: Augmented Reality is one of the Top 10 strategic IT technologies of our time. And Juniper Research forecasts $1.5 billion in revenue by 2015.
So, here it is. If your world turns to be an extremely boring place, everything you need is any technological device to brighten your days, while expanding your reality to augmented dimensions. If you do not start using it yourself, next year your cell phone will do it for you.
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