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    Understanding Augmented Reality: Concepts and Applications
    Understanding Augmented Reality: Concepts and Applications
    Understanding Augmented Reality: Concepts and Applications
    Ebook546 pages9 hours

    Understanding Augmented Reality: Concepts and Applications

    By Alan B. Craig

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    About this ebook

    Understanding Augmented Reality addresses the elements that are required to create augmented reality experiences. The technology that supports augmented reality will come and go, evolve and change. The underlying principles for creating exciting, useful augmented reality experiences are timeless.

    Augmented reality designed from a purely technological perspective will lead to an AR experience that is novel and fun for one-time consumption - but is no more than a toy. Imagine a filmmaking book that discussed cameras and special effects software, but ignored cinematography and storytelling! In order to create compelling augmented reality experiences that stand the test of time and cause the participant in the AR experience to focus on the content of the experience - rather than the technology - one must consider how to maximally exploit the affordances of the medium.

    Understanding Augmented Reality addresses core conceptual issues regarding the medium of augmented reality as well as the technology required to support compelling augmented reality. By addressing AR as a medium at the conceptual level in addition to the technological level, the reader will learn to conceive of AR applications that are not limited by today’s technology. At the same time, ample examples are provided that show what is possible with current technology.

    • Explore the different techniques, technologies and approaches used in developing AR applications
    • Learn from the author's deep experience in virtual reality and augmented reality applications to succeed right off the bat, and avoid many of the traps that catch new developers and users of augmented reality experiences
    • Some AR examples can be experienced from within the book using downloadable software
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherElsevier Science
    Release dateApr 26, 2013
    ISBN9780240824109
    Understanding Augmented Reality: Concepts and Applications
    Author

    Alan B. Craig

    Dr. Alan B. Craig is an independent consultant in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Visualization, and High Performance Computing. Prior to this role, he contributed much to these fields during his thirty-year career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) as a Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and as Senior Associate Director for Human-Computer Interaction at the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science (I-CHASS). Among his other consulting roles, he is currently engaged with the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). Dr. Craig has been called upon to speak as an expert in VR and AR at countless worldwide events and continues to speak at various venues. He has taught classes related to VR and AR online as well as onsite at universities, companies, and high school campuses. Dr. Craig has worked with government and industry entities regarding VR and AR applications. He has been interviewed by numerous publications, television, and news outlets. In addition to Understanding Virtual Reality (with William R. Sherman) he also authored Developing Virtual Reality Applications (with William R. Sherman and Jeffrey D. Will) and Understanding Augmented Reality. Additionally, he has written multiple book chapters and articles. He has developed many virtual reality and augmented reality applications in content areas ranging from archaeology to zoology. He also teaches and advises on related topics. His primary focus has been on the use of virtual reality and augmented reality in educational applications and his work centers on the continuum between the physical and the digital. He holds three patents.

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      Book preview

      Understanding Augmented Reality - Alan B. Craig

      1

      What Is Augmented Reality?

      Introduction

      This chapter introduces the idea of augmented reality (AR) and defines what is meant by the term augmented reality in the context of this book. It also distinguishes augmented reality from other related media and technologies, as well as introduces some terms that will aid in understanding the chapters that follow.

      Throughout the entirety of this book, I consider augmented reality to be a medium, as opposed to a technology. By medium, I mean that it mediates ideas between humans and computers, humans and humans, and computers and humans. Of course, implementing augmented reality as a medium requires technology and a clear understanding of that technology. Numerous technologies can be used to implement augmented reality, and this book addresses a variety of different methods and types of technology that can be used. These technologies and the ideas behind them are covered in later chapters in the book. There are advantages and disadvantages with different technologies for different types of applications. The chapters that follow address the characteristics of the technologies and show the advantages and disadvantages of using them in different types of applications. By taking the stance that augmented reality is a medium, it will become much clearer how the technologies involved can be used to create compelling applications for a variety of purposes instead of as a mere technological novelty. In much the same manner as a book about making movies needs to treat not only the technologies involved, such as cameras, lights, and projectors, but also how to use the medium to tell a story, to evoke emotion, or to document an event, it is important to consider more than just technology to create compelling augmented reality applications.

      Humans interact with different media in different ways. Typically, people read a book. They watch a movie. They listen to music. This book considers that the way people engage with augmented reality is to experience it. Augmented reality can appeal to many of our senses (although currently it is primarily a visual medium). Augmented reality is interactive, so it doesn’t make sense to watch it or listen to it. We must engage with it in order to gain the experience that it provides. Augmented reality can support many different application areas. It can be applied in education, entertainment, medicine, and many more areas discussed in this book. Each of these different application areas and specific applications constitute an experience.

      So what is this augmented reality experience? In brief, the core essence of an augmented reality experience is that you, the participant, engage in an activity in the same physical world that you engage with whether augmented reality is involved or not, but augmented reality adds digital information to the world that you can interact with in the same manner that you interact with the physical world. I’ll define augmented reality more precisely later in this chapter, but for now, consider it that you are engaged in the regular normal world, but there are additions to that world that consist of digital information that is placed in the world to augment the world with things you would not normally see, hear, feel, touch, etc. What’s an example of an augmented reality experience? Imagine for a moment that you go to visit a vacant lot where you intend to build your dream home. Now let’s consider an augmented reality experience in which you go to that (vacant) lot, but through the use of technology you are able to see your dream home in place on that lot. You can walk around the house and see it from all different viewpoints just like you could if the house was actually completed on the lot. You can interact with the house, open the door, and so on just like you could in the real world. However, AR can also offer the potential to do things that are not possible in a normal interaction in the real world. Perhaps you want to see the house in a different color, move the house on the lot, or see the house take off like a rocket ship. These are all possible with augmented reality.

      Let’s start by looking to the past to see where some of the ideas behind augmented reality came from. Then, we will be able to define augmented reality more precisely and explore how it works and what it is good for.

      Where Did Augmented Reality Come from?

      Since the beginning of time, humankind has sought to alter and improve their environment. Early attempts to modify and enhance their world involved manipulating physical objects in the physical world. For example, early humans cut clearings in jungles, gathered rocks to sit on, and sharpened branches into spears. Later, they learned to represent information symbolically and learned to create imagery, such as paintings on cave walls for functional purposes—to indicate a map to a favorite location, to tell a story, or purely as an aesthetic adornment (Figure

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