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Tech Primer
Augmented Reality
 Virtual
Reality takes you into a world that does not exist, to a journey through stars
and alienated world, a world so beautiful that you wouldn’t want to come
back to face the real world. However, what if we make virtual reality a part
of our real world and perhaps use it to solve some of the daily issues! Issues
like, finding the right place for lunch, locate a friend on a crowded street
or even find directions to where you want to go. This can be made possible through
Augmented Reality, wherein 3D displays are used to overlay a synthesised world
on top of the real world. This is no fantasy story that we’re discussing
here. An Augmented reality system can really make these things possible.
Inside Augmented Reality
A typical AR system comprises of three major components: a head mounted display,
a tracking system (GPS) and mobile computing power. All these three components
are incorporated into one unit, housed in a belt-worn device that wirelessly
relays information to a display (which would look like an ordinary pair of sunglasses).
The headgear (or the special sunglasses) blocks out the wearer’s view of
the surrounding environment. Images are captured using small video cameras outside
of the goggles and image is played in real-time inside of it with graphics superimposed
on the video.
Nokia’s MARA
In an attempt to bring Augmented Reality from the research labs to the end users,
researchers at Nokia have developed a prototype that uses Augmented Reality
to identify objects viewed on the screen of a camera phone. The research team
has demonstrated the prototype which is equipped with the MARA (Mobile Augmented
Reality Applications) software and the appropriate hardware, which includes
a global positioning system to provide position, an accelerometers with all
three axes for relative orientation and a tilt compensated magnetometer to determine
heading.
Once the absolute location and orientation of a camera is known, along with
the properties of the lens, the exact part of the scene that is viewed by the
camera is determined. Since these sensors give approximate location and orientation,
the viewfinder is annotated with information about real world objects, once
the device is focussed on them. The prototype uses a Nokia 6680 mobile device
with an add-on box containing GPS and sensors. The attached sensor box provides
the position and orientation information to the phone via a Bluetooth connection.
It identifies locations easily by highlighting on-screen with virtual objects;
URLs can be associated with virtual objects thus enabling hyper-links to real
world objects. The objects can be streamed from a server or even stored at the
terminal. The prototype has automatic switching to map-view when the user holds
the phone horizontally. This displays the user’s position on a map and
highlights nearby virtual objects.
Are we talking real?
While the MARA project from Nokia is yet not available commercially, you might
get to see something similar from other companies. Geovector has already launched
a similar product which is commercially available in Japan. The company has
created a software that serves up 3D maps and walking directions on phones.
All you have to do is point at a particular object with your camera phone and
you get information about the same through the Internet. You can also key-in
what you’re looking for, like ‘Lebanese food’. The system would
search all the restaurants offering Lebanese food and point them on the 3D map.
Let’s Play with AR!
This technology is perhaps more extensively exploited by the gaming industry
with games like the ‘Invisible Train’, which is a mobile, collaborative
multi-user Augmented Reality (AR) game, in which players control virtual trains
on a real wooden miniature railroad track. These virtual trains are only visible
to players through their PDA’s video see-through display as they don’t
exist in the physical world. This type of user interface is commonly called
the “magic lens metaphor”.
The technology becomes more notable as we already have GPS services enabled
in India and the industry is rapidly growing. Also, a large portion of mobile
handsets these days are 3G enabled. Thus, as soon as the 3G technology is passed
by the TRAI, we may well see such technologies storming the Indian market.
—Varun Aggarwal
For more information see:
computer.howstuffworks.com/augmented-reality.htm
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