Introduction to Virtual and Augmented Reality
The world of virtual and augmented reality is growing at an incredible pace, with over $3.5 billion invested in startups over the past two years. According to Goldman Sachs, the combined hardware and software marketplace for VR and AR is anticipated to succeed in $80 billion by 2025, with a possible to succeed in over $180 billion. Many experts consider that augmented reality will represent the larger opportunity in the long term, because it has the potential to rework markets and the character of our existence.
The Technical Challenges of Augmented Reality
Creating responsive media in the actual environment is stuffed with technical challenges. Companies like Magic Leap are attracting enormous investment, however the technical difficulties are significant. Seven scientists from leading research programs in virtual and augmented reality recently published a report discussing the technical challenges of realizing the AR opportunity. The report, co-authored by Christian Sandor, Martin Fuchs, Alvaro Cassinelli, Hao Li, Richard Newcombe, Goshiro Yamamoto, and Steven Feiner, considers the fundamental approaches to achieving true augmented reality and the technical and ethical challenges that include it.
Approaches to Achieving True Augmented Reality
The researchers discover 4 fundamental approaches to achieving true augmented reality, which might be represented on a scale of "decreasing order of physicality" from "manipulating atoms" to "manipulating perception." These approaches include:
- Controlled Matter: Manipulating or reconfiguring atoms to vary the physical environment. This approach is arguably probably the most technically difficult and includes research on displays that use magnetic fields to create shapes out of ferromagnetic fluid.
- Surround AR: Manipulating photons to make objects within the environment visually indistinguishable from physical reality. This approach includes using light-field displays and haptics achieved through ultrasound waves.
- Personalized AR: Displaying information only within the subset of the environment that a specific user is experiencing. Examples of this approach include devices like Google Glass and Microsoft’s HoloLens.
- Implanted AR: Manipulating the perceptual system itself, quite than the knowledge sent to it. This approach has been depicted in science fiction and will first grow to be widespread as a way of augmenting the experience of those with conditions akin to blindness.
The Ethics of Augmented Reality
Beyond the technical challenges, the researchers consider the ethics of augmented reality. With the potential to completely manipulate the human experience of reality, big questions arise: Who will control its deployment? Who will ultimately be in charge of its augmented content and for what purposes will or not it’s used? Will individuals be freed or locked into purely commerce-driven experiences? The potential for augmented reality to boost our quality of life and promote higher communication and deeper understanding is critical, but so is the potential for it to isolate and project us right into a world of delusion.
Conclusion
The development of augmented reality will proceed to emerge as advances in disciplines beyond optics, computer graphics, and computer vision converge to make the above approaches possible. While market estimates seem significant, they’re insignificant next to the size of the ambition to free humans from the boundaries of the physical, biological, and ethical limitations of our current experience. As the need to sate the human imagination drives the event of other media, augmented reality will play a serious role in shaping the long run of human experience. With its potential to rework markets and the character of our existence, augmented reality is an area price watching and exploring further.
