AUGMENTED REALITY - RESEARCH

       Augmented reality (AR) is cutting-edge technology that allows for a digitally enhanced view of the real world, connecting you with more meaningful content in your everyday life. With the camera and sensors in a smart phone or tablet, AR adds layers of digital information like videos, photos, sounds directly on top of items in the world around us

      It blurs the line between what's real and what's computer-generated by enhancing what we see, hear, feel and smell. Augmented reality is changing the way we view the world -- or at least the way its users see the world. Picture yourself walking or driving down the street. With augmented-reality displays, which will eventually look much like a normal pair of glasses, informative graphics will appear in your field of view, and audio will coincide with whatever you see. These enhancements will be refreshed continually to reflect the movements of your head.

    The basic idea of augmented reality is to superimpose graphics, audio and other sensory enhancements over a real-world environment in real time.

Some basic components that are found in many augmented reality systems:

1.Camera 2.Small projector 3.Smartphone 4.Mirror

These components are strung together in a lanyard like apparatus that the user wears around his neck. The user also wears four coloured caps on the fingers, and these caps are used to manipulate the images that the projector emits.

Today Augmented Reality is used in entertainment, military training, engineering design, robotics, manufacturing and other industries

Limitations and the Future of Augmented Reality

      Augmented reality still has some challenges to overcome. For example, GPS is only accurate to within 30 feet (9 meters) and doesn't work as well indoors, although improved image recognition technology may be able to help .

       People may not want to rely on their cell phones, which have small screens on which to superimpose information. For that reason, wearable devices like Google Glass or augmented-reality capable contact lenses and glasses will provide users with more convenient, expansive views of the world around them. Screen real estate will no longer be an issue. In the near future, you may be able to play a real-time strategy game on your computer, or you can invite a friend over, put on your AR glasses, and play on the tabletop in front of you.

       There are also privacy concerns. Image-recognition software coupled with AR will, quite soon, allow us to point our phones at people, even strangers, and instantly see information from their Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, LinkedIn or other online profiles. With most of these services people willingly put information about themselves online, but it may be an unwelcome shock to meet someone, only to have him instantly know so much about your life and background.

       Despite these concerns, imagine the possibilities: you may learn things about the city you've lived in for years just by pointing your AR-enabled phone at a nearby park or building. If you work in construction, you can save on materials by using virtual markers to designate where a beam should go or which structural support to inspect. Paleonthologists working in shifts to assemble a dinosaur skeleton could leave virtual "notes" to team members on the bones themselves, artists could produce virtual graffiti and doctors could overlay a digital image of a patient's X-rays onto a mannequin for added realism.

      The future of augmented reality is clearly bright, even as it already has found its way into our cell    phones and video game systems. For more information about the subject and where it's headed, take a look at the links on the next page.