The world is advancing faster than it has ever before and it is hard to keep up with the day to day technological advancement. We are more surrounded by technology than people these days. So, at any given time there is a plethora of technologies to keep your eye on. It seems like yesterday, when we were introduced to VR i.e. Virtual Reality and today, we found new advancement in this techno savvy world, Augmented Reality, commonly known as AR.
WHAT IS AR?
AR stands for Augmented reality which is an advancement to a popular technology, VR. People all around the world are using the applications of this technology on and off but are still novice about its root. Augmented Reality places a digital object or a substance in your environment. It gives a very vibrant and brisk experience of our environment in an animated digital manner. It places animated objects in our surroundings using some algorithms. There are various games and apps which are working on the AR. Recently, we saw a great buzz about a mobile game named Pokémon GO, which made people go super crazy while trying to hunt, catch, hatch, evolve, train and fight Pokémon creatures. The players wander from place to place in search of the creatures of the game. What made this game a sensation was the use of AR with the help of which a three-dimensional object related to game could
be seen nearby on their phone screen.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AR AND VR?
VR stands for Virtual Reality in which a person is taken to a completely different 3D world. A VR is like a pair of glasses which a person wears, through which he sees a digital world around him quite contrary to his present world. The virtual world through VR has nothing in common to the real world. In AR, a person just downloads a software and add some algorithms in it which adds a few animated objects in his present surrounding. Everything else remains the same, the person sees the real world around him only with an addition of a few digital objects or products.
HOW AN AR WORKS?
The working of an AR is quite simple. First of all, a person clicks the picture of the surrounding. The AR then measures the distance of the object on which the product is to be kept. Suppose we wish to place a panda on a chair. Then in that case, a person clicks the picture of the chair on which the digital panda is to be kept. The AR then measures the dimensions of the chair and on the basis of which it uses its filters and features to place the digital panda on the chair.
EXAMPLES OF AR
BRINGING TATTOO INTO REALITY
Recently, Abhishek Singh shared an extremely fascination video of bringing tattoo car on his arm in motion. The technology used in this act was AR itself. The working of this mesmerizing video is easier than the spelling of the word mesmerizing. He simply took a picture of his tattoo and added it in the algorithm. The instructions of the algorithm were such that as soon as the camera of his phone scans the picture of his tattoo, it plays a video of his tattoo car moving on a road which makes it super cool.
SNAPCHAT
Most of the teenagers are very fond of this app for its unique filters. You must have taken pictures on Snapchat with your face being modified with different color shades, tiaras, or with ears and tongues of different animals. The Snapchat filter with doggy ears and tongue is greatly renowned these days. Ever wondered how it happens? Its quite simple too.
Snapchat uses face detection algorithm which is familiar to all these days. It detects the dimension of each part of the face of the face like eyes, ears and nose and sets the filters accordingly using AR.
MICROSOFT HOLOLENS
The technology used in HoloLens is 3D depth sense. These are the sensors which the detect 3D objects from your environment and places their digital products on that very 3D object.
So before placing the object, the AR measures the dimensions of the 3D object on which the digital product is to be kept and then places the product on it.