Like 1992 Without the Supercomputers

Oculus Rift headset image by Rebke Klokke

Last week I attended the SIGGRAPH conference at the LA Convention Center. The name is an acronym for the Special Interest Group for Graphics, one of the largest special interest groups in the Association of Computer Machinery. 

For me, the SIGGRAPH conference is one of the most educational and inspirational experiences of the year. It is the best place to learn what is technically possible in the field of imaging as well as how the technology works.

Every SIGGRAPH seems to have one overwhelming theme and this year the focus was on Virtual Reality. It  was like 1992 all over again, but without the supercomputers. I remember being awed 23 years ago by the demonstrations with ten pound headsets tethered to computers that were larger than my office. Despite the hype at the time, there were few applications that could justify the expense of the hardware and the content development.

This time, the headsets are smaller, lighter and driven by the GPU board in a desktop computer or by a smartphone. In a session titled The Renaissance of VR, Ron Azuma of Intel Labs gave three reasons why virtual reality will be successful this time:

• Performance - The graphic performance of the new generation of devices is high enough to provide compelling immersive experiences.
• Price - The new hardware is cheap enough that many people will be able to afford and experience virtual reality first hand.
• Investment - The huge investments being made by several large companies will lead to high quality hardware and content.

Interestingly, Azuma concluded that augmented reality might have an even bigger future than virtual reality.

In what reality would you like to be immersed?

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Apple's Push Into Augmented Reality

Image from Patently Apple

There have been several news items recently that indicate the Apple has decided to play a leading role in the new medium of augmented reality. Augmented reality applications provide digital information that is synchronized in time and location with the real world. Since smartphones are the one digital device that people have with them constantly in the real world, they are an obvious platform for augmenting that world.

In February, the US Patent and Trademark office published 45 new Apple patents that had been granted including an invention relating to flexible displays that have openings designed in the display. One or more openings in the display may form a window through which a user of the device may view an external object. Display pixels in the portion of the display in which the window in formed may be used in forming a heads-up display.

This type of display would be ideal for building an augment reality headset or creating the dashboard and windshield of an automobile.

On May 17th, Apple announced the acquisition of Coherent Navigation, a Bay Area global positioning company that has developed a commercial navigation system that is more accurate than consumer grade GPS systems. Positioning is critical to synchronizing the augmented reality experience with the actual location in the real world.

On May 29th, Apple purchased Metaio, one of the leading companies developing augmented reality authoring tools and customized applications of the technology for advertising and training. Metaio also created the popular Junaio augmented reality browser which pulls data from multiple sources and overlays it on the view from your phone or tablet camera.

These technology additions in the fields of display, mapping and content development put Apple firmly in the race with Microsoft's Hololens, and Google's Glass, Cardboard and Magic Leap investments.

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What is augmented reality?

Augmented Reality in Mini Cooper.
Image from Car and Driver

Last December, when I predicted the top technological stories of 2015, I overlooked augmented reality. In the last few weeks however, there has been an explosion of news stories featuring this futuristic medium.

Augmented reality is a media experience that adds digital information to the world that you can interact with in the same manner that you interact with the physical world.  According to Dr. Alan Craig in his book Understanding Augmented Reality Concepts and Applications, there are four key aspects of an augmented reality experience:

• The physical world is augmented by digital information superimposed on a view of the physical world.
• The information is displayed in registration with the physical world.
• The information displayed is dependent on the location of the real world and the physical perspective of the person in the physical world.
• The information displayed is interactive in a way that allows the user to sense the information and make changes to the information if desired.

While there are many mobile applications that provide supplemental information about the real world based upon the location of the user, most do not meet the definition of augmented reality because they do not display that information in registration with the physical world.

At the Shanghai Auto Festival a few weeks ago, the Mini Cooper division of BMW demonstrated in an interesting application of augmented reality where a driver wearing a special pair of glasses can "see through" the blind spots caused by the car's roof and sides.  When the driver looks in the direction of the blind spots, the system replaces the roof and sides with views from cameras located at the exterior of the car.

Many of the early augmented reality applications were designed to add information to printed material. When the user aimed a device's camera at selected content on the printed piece, the content was replaced with a video or a three dimensional representation that added information to the printed content. This is an interesting use case because the "reality" being augmented is itself a two dimensional representation of a different reality. In my opinion, most of the print applications of augmented reality have been mostly gimmicks and not very useful.

Beyond print enhancement, digital augmentation of the real world has tremendous value in entertainment, transportation and many other fields. Some of the most useful applications will be in automotive safety where the systems can highlight potential dangers before the driver might see them without the augmentation.

What part of your reality would you like to augment?

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