Introduction to Augmented Reality Innovations

Immersive games, a training in mixed reality, and a system that operates a robot from a distance were among the many projects presented and demonstrated at Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering. These innovations were the culmination of an interdisciplinary augmented reality class taught by Hopkins alum Ehsan Azimi and Nassir Navab, an adjunct professor of computer science.

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality, also generally known as AR, is a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the true world, providing a melding of physical and virtual realities. Experts say that AR has the potential uses in medicine, retail, education, manufacturing, and more.

The Interdisciplinary Class

Graduate and advanced undergraduate students from computer science, electrical and computer engineering, biomedical and mechanical engineering, robotics, and engineering management took the category. They spent the ultimate five weeks of the semester working in teams under the guidance of their mentors to design and develop their AR applications.

Project Showcase

One of the projects featured at the category showcase was an augmented reality card game, dropped at life on an iPad screen. "To foster creativity in students’ designs, there have been not many restrictions," Azimi said. "The system needed to have the opportunity to show the advantage of using prolonged reality and include a minimum of three features that were taught within the lectures comparable to tracking, gesture interaction, sonification, and perceptual visualization."

Design Thinking

The instructors also included design considering on this yr’s syllabus to encourage students to give attention to those that would ultimately use their technology. Design considering is a problem-solving approach that centers on constructing empathy with the user to handle their real problem. "As the technology around augmented and virtual reality is rapidly evolving, we wish to offer the scholars with an experience by which they’ll tackle a various set of problems slightly than scripted instructions and methods only for passing a course," Azimi said.

Project Examples

Projects included a system to enable more accurate joint injections on patients and a system that enables players to examine their environment as an enormous chess board. Guest judges from Microsoft Mixed Reality, MedVR, the University of Michigan, and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine participated within the demonstrations and gave students feedback on their projects.

List of Projects

A whole list of project demonstrations includes:

• Planning and Visualization of Needle Trajectories for Facet Joint Injection in Patients undergoing Recurring Appointments
• Surgical Guidance Strategies for Continuum Manipulators
• Use of HMD’s Built-in Environmental Cameras for out-of-sight Object Awareness
• Teleoperation in Mixed Reality
• 3D Editor for Clinical Training
• Chess in a Room
• AR Dixit
• Line-Based Shape Perception in Medical Augmented Reality
• Utilize AR Interactions to Improve Lab Science Education

Conclusion

The goal of the category is that students would have the opportunity to proceed with more advanced graduate studies or go to work directly within the rapidly expanding immersive technology industry—in diverse areas comparable to medicine, gaming, education, and manufacturing. With the assistance of instructors and teaching assistants, students were in a position to create revolutionary AR applications that showcase the potential of this technology. As the technology around augmented and virtual reality continues to evolve, it’ll be exciting to see what the longer term holds for these students and their projects.