Augmenting AR

Augmented Reality (AR) is projected to grow exponentially in years to come, and there are justified reasons for the same. AR can be leveraged in diverse use cases spanning and varied domains, be it manufacturing, enterprise, consumer etc. Wherever observed experience (or reality) can be enhanced by additional input (of audio or video or both) in real time, we have valid AR use case (theoretically this can be extended to include involve other senses as well e.g. touch, smell etc.). As can be seen, the potential and value of such arrangement is limited by one’s imagination only.

The way current AR systems work is that additional input is triggered after an object identification stage. e.g. information about a particular building (i.e. historic significance etc.) is superimposed on live video feed once it is found to be matching a stored reference. After object identification, the associated action is triggered (which can be playing a specific video after merging with live feed, for example).

In current systems, this event (of object identification) and associated action (video clip playing) is pretty much hard-coded. We however believe that in case mapping engine can be made more dynamic (or smart or situationally aware), the potential of AR can be increased multi-fold. e.g. mapping of event to action can also take into account the AR user’s attributes and/or preferences and then dynamically modify the action (If person A play video X, else play video Y, for example).           

Some of the scenarios which illustrate the advantages of the modified/enhanced mapping engine are:

1.      One of the simplest examples that can be considered is “Pokémon Go “app. If we use enhance mapping engine, Pokémon avatars/characters can be modified to attract different age groups, less scary for tender age groups, for example. Extending the same example further, auditory instructions can be given to for visually impaired person instead of playing a video clip. Needless to say, the person has to be registered in the system along with relevant attribute information.

2.      Value of AR can be similarly enhanced if we are able to use situational context as an input to mapping engine. For determining situation context, we need some sort of sensing capabilities (motion, light etc.) and this opens another interesting possibility - possibility of amalgamation of two technologies - IoT and AR. However, overlap of IoT and AR is not the topic of this article. The key point however is that using the sensing capabilities of AR devices, situation contextual can be determined which can be further used to refine AR applications so as to augment their overall value. For example, it can be determined whether a person is stationary or moving based on sensors available on most of the AR devices. Based on this information, superimposed content can be modified (enhanced or restricted). e.g. show loads of information/content for a particular “point of interest” (PoI) in case the person is stationary and show minimal information in case the person is moving (to reduce chances of accidents due to distraction etc.)

3.      Mapping engine can also initiate time aware actions. Going forward, we see AR being extensively used in manufacturing sector. Going forward, shop floor is the stage where AR is expected to cast a spell!! -Primarily due to fact that it allows hands-free operation (assuming AR content is consumed using smart glasses) and also it avoids constant to and fro head movement to refer technical\maintenance manuals while attending to task at hand (e.g. maintenance/repair etc.). A machine is typically expected to process multiple production plans during course of a day (oftentimes execution of one production plan overlapping one shift time). So the requirement of having different visualizations (based on the currently active production plan) can be a real boon, further illustrating the advantages of dynamic mapping engine capable of changing the AR content/format based on schedule/current time. Seen from this perspective, AR is but a smart visualization engine

Above cases illustrate that value of AR can be drastically enhanced in case mapping engine is made more smart and/or context aware. Otherwise we are just looking at tip of an iceberg. So all this boils down to simple question: Are we ready to look beneath the surface and exploit real potential of AR?