Augmented Reality (or short AR) refers to the computer based extension of reality perception. In general this additional information can extend any of the human sensory organs. Currently however most of the time the expansion of visual information is understood, that makes through superimposition additional information available. A well known example is during football broadcasts the superimposition of circles, lines and distance measurements by free kicks for the television viewer.

Reality

Real representation of objects and persons in real time.

Augmented Reality (AR)

Real representation with additional information for example with Smartphones or AR-glasses such as Microsoft HoloLens.

Augmented Virtuality (AV)

Virtual spaces with displayed real objects and persons for example remote diagnostics of an faulty aircraft drive via a pair of VR-glasses and superimposed image data of the real engine that is physically far away.

Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual spaces with virtual objects and virtual people.

Augmented reality and augmented virtuality are also called Mixed Reality because they contain both real and virtual elements.

Augmented reality and augmented virtuality are future technologies but already today they get employed successfully across all sectors of professional and private areas of application. In the following we want to introduce you to some examples of mixed reality solutions from different fields of business and applications.

Industry and Production

In the age of „Industry 4.0“ the use of augmented reality (AR) enables the work with both hands while the worker is provided with all information that are necessary to fulfill his task via an „augmented reality display“.

Computer organized automatic production

Computerized machines are equipped with several circuit boards. In the industrial production on location the control and repair of faulty circuit boards can be considerably optimized and speed up by the use of augmented reality technology. The faulty circuit board is scanned and identified by a QR-Code. The digital error message reported by the system gets transmitted to the augmented reality app. Then the technician gets the circuit board with the faulty areas displayed also as a x-ray image and can execute the repair by following the displayed instructions. Additionally a specialist can assist the repair via video chat.

Computerized manufacturing

At sequences of a production where workers still have to operate manually an augmented reality app can display millimeter precise superimpositions for the next step of a procedure, prevent misplacement and therefore avoid waste.

Automotive

The whole value chain of the automobile industry, called „automotive“ in short, profits a lot of the versatile application possibilities of virtual reality and augmented reality. They are one more milestone on the automative industry’s way into the digital future. In the development it is often no longer necessary to produce costly prototypes. The models get designed digitally in a virtual world and the individual components get joined and optimized via an augmented reality app. Just after the virtual overall picture fulfills all the requirements the expensive production of a prototype starts. In this way the use of an augmented reality app saves a lot of time and money in the development process.

Logistics and Storage

Augmented reality offers innovative solutions especially for the picking type „pick by vision“. The picker gets crucial information displayed on his AR-glasses like for example item number, trade name, amount to be taken, storing position, storage shelf and many more. There are already data glasses that are equipped with a mini scanner module that can be used to scan bar and qr codes and thats data can be processed via an integrated Wifi-module by the storage managing system.

Real Estate, Architecture and Interior Design

From Architecture project planning to the marketing of a property to facility management – everywhere here are plenty application possibilities for augmented reality solutions. In the panning process of an architectural or interior design project apartment houses, company buildings and whole cities can be seen not only as a 3D model on screen but can be experienced in an AR application. While 360 degree apartment viewings get more and more popular in real estate marketing because they safe time and money, whole new possibilities open up due to AR applications especially for solvent clients from abroad. By the maintenance of building complexes AR replaces plans and documents on paper, simplifies the work for coworkers newly in training and shortens the service time.

Exhibitions

The exhibit space at important trade fairs is limited and costly. Make the best use of your area with an AR application by augmenting it with virtual elements like you product in real size. You also save transportation costs by bringing along you exhibits virtually. Right now this offers a nice additional side effect: Augmented Reality glasses itself will guarantee you curious spectators, stopping passers and therefore potential new customers that become aware of your stand.

Marketing and AR-Print

Offer potential new customers the possibility to get to know your product or service in a whole new way and let your existing clients experience them new. Enhance your brochures with virtual information that know to convince. Each selling point you can bring closer to your customer with augmented reality and will thereby be more effective. Make your print products like product catalogues, packaging, flyer, business cards or image brochures an experience with AR-Print.

Training, Instruction and Learning

With augmented reality you can make any environment to a gym or a class room. Via data glasses you can receive instructions for a training easily by for example superimposing virtual targets or obstacles into your field of view. Additionally athletes can see their stats or their progress. Similar the knowledge transfer works with augmented reality. Correlations can be well visualized and tasks can be worked on, solved and understood interactively. No matter if it is training or knowledge transfer: Augmented reality gives extra motivation.

Trade

In trade augmented reality unleashes a lot of potential. A crucial benefit is the direct connection of the seller to all information consigned to an item. In this way all important unique selling points are immediately available to the sales person. In addition further suggestions for interactions can be displayed – also in real time. Furthermore it is a positive effect for commerce that sales and storage can be connected well through data glasses or similar augmented reality devices. This results in faster processes and lowers costs.

Productivity

Augmented reality has a huge potential and can boost efficiency in various departments. No matter if it is in production, logistics or field service your coworkers have an easier access to documents and data through head-mounted-displays (HMD) so that the training period is shorter and productivity of you company increases. Augmented reality simplifies the collaboration of human and machine and minimizes sources of error. Already in 2015 DHL equipped their logistic workers with data glasses and increased their productivity in this way. Many more applications are imaginable.

Games and Gamification

In the field of gaming augmented reality creates a connection between game world and reality. Via data goggles play typical graphics like opponents or collectable items get superimposed into the real world. The player immerses realistically into the game and have seemingly direct contact to what is happening in the game. A second application of augmented reality that originally descended from games is gamification. There familiar content like progress bars or stats are transferred to other areas – most of the time work.

Tourism

Tourism lives of dreams. The wish for vacation is connected to many emotions. But often it happens that the holiday destination looks quite different in reality than in the catalogue. A big disappointment. Augmented reality is ideal for tourism and vacation planning because this problem can be avoided with VR-glasses in an elegant way. Already by planning your vacation, at the first contact with the tour operator you can see authentic images of the hotel or destination. The innovative technology can avoid you frustrating experiences easily.

Medicine

In medicine augmented reality helps surgeons to find small target areas. Therefore AR offers the right information at any moment. The data glasses highlight an anatomical target structure in 3D and real time. Short voice commands lets you skip between 3D and 2D view, between blood vessels, bones and other tissue structures. Zooming and other forms of modification of the AR-visualization are imaginable. Moreover AR applications offer an ideal simulation of an surgery.

Product Enhancement

Industry 4.0 paired with augmented reality has a huge potential. The more flexible a product becomes the faster a company can react to market changes. Augmented reality is perfectly suitable for the processing of raw materials for example the thermic forming of textiles. Metals or substances can be revalued though glitter effects. There are many more application possibilities of product revaluation and enhancement like industrial robots. Besides mechanic product revaluation and enhancement also the digital enhancement of services is imaginable. All processes increase the value added and efficiency in a company.

Indoor and Outdoor Navigation

Augmented reality can be used for navigation by displaying direction signs and other symbols. For pedestrians AR city guides or indoor navigation apps offer helpful orientation on confusing locations such as airports, shopping malls or stadiums. Many automobile manufacturers already experiment with head-up-displays, that shall guid drivers the way. For filter aircrafts head-up-displays are already in use.

ODG R-7

The AR glasses ODG R-7 are made by the American design group Osterhout. The 3D enabled glasses offer both VR and AR, look similar to normal glasses and are easy to mount and dismount.The temple houses the technology and you can adjust its position with the cushioned nose pads. The ODG R-7 is equipped with magnetic stereo ports, offers a 16 to 9 field of view and the dual stereoscopic display is semitransparent. The tracking is based on accelerator, gyroscope, magnetometer as well as sensors for pressure and humidity.

ODG R-8 and ODG R-9

Both augmented reality glasses are further developments of the ODG R-7. They offer a wider field of view and faster processing power.

Google Glasses

Google glasses are more than AR glasses: This head mounted wearable (device for mobile data processing) is a real miniature computer with an optical display. This is a head-mounted display on a frame for augmented reality applications. The person wearing sees certain information in his field of view and can combine them with images generated by the integrated digital camera. Those data can directly sourced from the internet.

Google – Project Aura

The project aura AR glasses by Google continue with some advancements their work on Google Glass. They are small and lightweight like ordinary correction glasses. The battery life excels that of Google Glass, the intel processor works faster and the prism is larger. The tracking works via gyroscope and accelerated sensor. It is equipped with a camera, Wifi and Bluetooth. The wearable can be controlled easily without external controller – like it is already standard in AR technology. The project had been abandoned.

Epson Moverio BT-200

Semitransparent and intelligent: These are Epsons multimedia glasses Moverio BT-200. Throughh the support of many applications and HD and 3D content they give a wide access toadmented reality. This device constantly analyzes movements and the surrounding. It is equipped with an integrated camera and a GPS system. You can navigate intuitively with an multitouch trackpad controller.

Moverio BT-300

The Moverio BT-300 contains the modern, silicon based OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology for digital displays by Epson. In this way Epson created the lightest multimedia glasses with OLED display that are available at the market furthermore with an image quality that is yet unmatched.

Moveiro BT-350

The brightest transparent smart glasses with Si-OLED technology for commercial uses in the areas of culture and entertainment.

Apple VRvana Totem

Already 2014 the start-up VRvana presented their Totem VR glasses with convincing Inside-Outside and hand tracking. Apple bought the company in 2017 and improved the glasses that are Apple VRvana Totem called now. It is capable to place AR applications correct in space. This is made by frontsided, high resolution cameras which images are displayed as extrem realistic holograms without perceptible latency.

Intel Vaunt

The AR glasses Intel Vaunt comes without display and wears like a normal pair of glasses, therefore it appears unobtrusive. The Intel Vaunt AR glasses transmit information via a projector in the retina of the users right eye, a noticeable display is not necessary. But the glasses and the projector need to be individually fitted to the user. The Intel Vault weights less than 50 Gramm. The project had been abandoned.

CastAR

The AR glasses CastAR originate from an exciting development project, that is regrettably discontinued by now due to the lack of further financing. But the glasses are still available. They weight just 100 Gramm and project with two mini-projectors a 720p-image in the users field of view. There are additional projection mats for CastAR that serve as playing field. The tracking is done by RFID head tracker with high precision, the Magic Wand lets you interact with virtual objects on the projection mat.

Magic Leap and Magic Leap One

The AR glasses made by Start-up Magic Leap is slim and get their information from a mini-computer attached to ones waistband. Furthermore a touchpad controller belongs to the system. With Magic Leap One it is possible to project a web browser into your virtual surrounding and in Augmented Reality you can open display windows in any size making it possible to watch tv while you are in the subway. The AR glasses display virtual objects surprisingly realistic, the presentation is said to outrival Microsofts HoloLens or Meta 2 in image quality.

Meta Vision and Meta 2

The AR glasses Meta 2 by Meta Vision are a direct competitor to Microsofts HoloLens and they impress with their technology. Yet they are significant cheaper than Microsofts showpiece. So far the Meta 2 are relatively big, two straps help to wear them. The 90° field of view is larger than the HoloLenses, it has the resolution 2.560 x 1.440 Pixel. Sensors recognize the users hand and head movements. You can interact via hand gestures.

Microsoft HoloLens

The AR glasses Microsoft HoloLens projects holograms, information and multimedia content in the users field of view. Their AR depiction resemble them of Terminator movies. The glasses are relatively expensive, but offer first class 2D and 3D projection reaching from feisty robots to new cars to planets of our sun system. The technology for this is build in the frame and makes the Microsoft HoloLens weight 580 Gramm. An additional head band increases the wearing comfort.

Vuzix M100

The AR glasses Vuzix M100 was available in the USA already fall 2014. They offer a refined design and convince technology for privat and many commercial applications. DHL for example uses the Vuzix M100 in their warehouse which increased productivity by 25 percent. The glasses weight just 300 Gramm, are equipped with audio output and two microphones and display Augmented Reality on a 16 by 9 screen.

Vuzix M300

The Vuzix M300 offers refined functionality for commercial applications reaching from client service to logistics to production tasks.

In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software providing generic functionality can be selectively changed by additional user-written code, thus providing application-specific software. A software framework provides a standard way to build and deploy applications. A software framework is a universal, reusable software environment that provides particular functionality as part of a larger software platform to facilitate development of software applications, products and solutions. An AR framework is the base of an AR application.

Apple ARKit

The Apple ARKit is an AR framework of the iOS 11 AR platform that can insert information and digital objects into the environment. In the Apple ARKit 1.5 under iOS 11.3 Beta, the functions for even more realistic user experiences have been further improved. Among other things, it is now possible to see virtual objects on vertical surfaces thanks to a further understanding of the scene. Furthermore, the Apple ARKit can now assign irregular surfaces more precisely.

Google ARCore

is used to create AR apps on Android. The three key technologies of motion tracking, understanding of the environment and light estimation are used. Many qualified Android smartphones from Android 7.0 (Nougat) can use the Google determines the position of the smartphone as it moves in space, identifies important points and recognizes flat surfaces. Objects and other information can be seamlessly integrated into a real environment.

Basis of Augmented Reality: Tool Usage

The perhaps first augmented reality system as we understand it now is made by Ivan Sutherland in 1968. But the fundamental concepts of augmented reality (AR) are significantly older: In principle AR means a technological extended perception of the physical reality in real time. Therefore a tool provides additional information. Consequently was a stick to test the carrying capacity of the ground in swampy terrain an old example of real haptic AR.

19th Century: First Technical Visions

Jule Vernes „The Carpathian Castle“ (1893) presented the first fictional AR application: A lifelike projection (information) of a human being complements their audible voice (perception). Further a short story by Lyman Frank Baum (1901) describes a pair of glasses with displayed information to watched people. 

Realisation in the 60s: The Other Consciousness Expansion

1968 Ivan Sutherland showed his real optical AR system at the university of Utah. It created simple 3D graphics as real time superimposition of real objects using mechanical tracking of the users movements. As interface served a head-mounted-display.

The 90s: Concept formation, Boeing and Orbit

„Augmented Reality“ became a concept by the beginning of the 90s: David Mizell and Tom Caudell (both Boing Company) augmented the field of view with further data for next steps in building a jet. In this decade radionavigation per satellite (GPS, Galileo etc.) and mobile devices (Smartphones, Pads and so on) increased the relevance of AR considerably. 1997 MARS (mobiles Augmented Reality System, Columbia University, New York) was developed: Via GPS Data about several campus buildings gets displayed (head-worn). Data display and calculation is done by a laptop mounted on the back.

21st Century: New Technical Visions

Starting in the year 2000 the number of AR applications increased noticeably in the areas entertainment (games) and education (for example museums). Already in 2000 a prototypical AR browser was created at the Georgia Institute of Technology: WWW-Information complemented the image of the physical environment in the head-mounted-display thanks to a complex tracking. Wikitude served as a AR browser on smartphones since 2008. 2009 the iPhone 3GS offers AR relevant sensors and sufficient processing power. Since then Augmented Reality got more and more mainstream through new apps and content. Ultimately new technological trends hint to the fusion of human perception with the sensor technology of the Internet of Things.