Future of Augmented Reality #4 - Hand-held video see-through displays

In our previous article we learned that the Display Devices have the ability to visualize information to the Augmented Reality end users needs, hands-free for the smart-glasses or always in the pocket for standard mobile devices. We also learned that the display device sub-categories are defined as: 1. hand-held video see-through, 2. hands-free video see-through, 3. wearable optical see-through and 4. wearable video see-through displays.

Now we are ready to go through the first AR display device sub-category Hand-held video see-through displays. Thus we will cover the answer to question:

What are the characteristics defining Hand-held video see-through displays?

Classical tablet and mobile phone devices represent this AR display group. Our video see-through AR view into the real world is produced by our brain. This perceptual magic is produced by our brain through mapping the tablet camera rendered on the display into our understanding of the world. As if we were observing the world from the position of the tablet camera, without actually having our field of view directly with AR content. Our brain does this mapping subconsciously, based on our brain ability for 3D spatial reasoning (or more widely defined as concrete reasoning).

This display type carries the main advantage of all video see-through devices, as the latency between the camera capture and our view on the real world is inherently synchronized. What ever the device observes through a camera, can be displayed on the screen, and this view can then be overlaid with AR content. This superimposed video with AR content is combined into a 3D perception by the power of our brain. Just like that, on a flat 2D display, our brain reconstructs the 3D perception. This is the first and main mechanism of the 3D perception in our brain based on purely visual cues, the other two mechanisms are parallax and stereo depth perception the latter two usually not present in hand-held devices. We get substantially good perception of how the virtual items are looking like in the real world and all we needed was a tablet or smartphone device.

This perceptual magic is very well represented by the amazing looking YouTube videos used for getting us excited about AR. Best example would be videos of AR content such as MagicLeap marketing, where a whale jumping from the basketball court mesmerized us all. Naturally this is just a perceptual trick, a trick that works on YouTube videos but is not really conveyed by the actual experience.

The overall user experience of this display group is mediated through the hand-held device, as demonstrated by the picture above. Greatest advantage for this type of display devices is the inherent scalability. This is simply because most of us are already carrying a smartphone in our pocket. Deploying AR content without the need for extra hardware has major capital expense and device management advantage. Additionally other advantages such as software updates have been previously steering AR use towards standard devices, this advantage is now vanishing as smart-glass manufacturers are getting their respective application stores up and running.

Hand-held video see-through display group is the first and most widely available category of AR displays. Such devices are for example hand-held devices like mobile phones or tablets, with greatest advantage in scalability and device software management.

In the next episode of this series we will be going through the second sub-category of Display Devices the Hands-free video see-through displays. With the understanding of the first Display Devices sub-group under our belt, we can start diving deeper into each of the other display device sub-categories and see what is the defining characteristic of that specific sub-category. We will also do a reality-check with the expectations for each sub-category. We will then be able to make knowledgeable decisions when adopting smart-glasses and standard mobile devices with AR capabilities for our business needs.

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