Maryna Razakhatskaya
Directions in Creative Technology and Digital Media
15 January, 2016
Augmented Reality
INDIVIDUAL DESIGN TECHNOLOGY REPORT

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Augmented Reality (AR) is the technology that adds an additional level of
information to physical or digital environment experienced by a user. The main two
features that make AR so attractive in its application to numerous domains is that it
works in real time and in semantic context. The basic technological concept consists
of three components: trigger, lense, and new pop-up content. [8]
A trigger can be:
• 2D object (an image, sign, printed or digital ad, traffic sign, christmas card,
text, etc.);
• 3D object (buildings, people, candles, Christmas trees, pets, etc.);
• GPS coordinates – location;
• Sound (Shazam app is a good example of early use of AR when the app
recognises an audio and provides textual and graphical information about it to
the user within the app);
• Text – broadly used for instant translation (The first translation AR app called
“Word Lens” used optical character recognition on any foreign language and
augmented reality to overlay a translation on the original text. It was acquired
by Google in 2014 and now is the feature of Google Translate. [5]).
When a trigger is identified and recognized, additional information pops up. Dynamic
or static, it can take the forms of:
• another image (2D object);
• 3D model;
• video;
• audio;
• text message (may be an advice, historical facts, or a commercial);
• point for interaction (buy button, links to Google maps, a coupon to be
redeemed as part of sales promotion campaign, a field to enter information to
move further in whatever you’re doing, etc.).
In order to trigger an additional layer of information, there is a need for the surface or
a lense where this information could be displayed without replacing the actual reality.
On TV screen, for example, a sports game usually has a side bar with scores. In the
environment without a screen, the reality is augmented through:
1. Glasses / Headsets.
Devices like Google Glass, Microsoft HoloLens, Epson's Moverio are worn on
user's head with the purpose to cover user's eyes with a lense on which
information is projected. Both products mentioned above are in prototype
stage and have to major concerns expressed by users: it makes a person look
uncomfortable wearing an unusual device; it is for individual usage only what
limits the experience and social aspects of interaction with augmented reality.
At the same time, there are ethical and security concerns related to using smart
glasses in public.

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2. Projections / Spacial AR.
Spacial AR allows projecting digital graphics onto physical objects (i.e.
buildings, walls of a room, coffee table, etc.) in order to create interactive
visual experience. This is the only tool at the moment that provides a solution
for group experience of AR. It doesn't require any action or device to be
carried by a user.
The technology is assured by large projectors and involves artistic work to set
up the interaction. By that reason, it is the most expensive option of AR.
Spacial AR is widely used in art installation, entertainment, at city events and
festivals, in outdoor advertising campaigns. In this application it's commonly
associated with 3D mapping.
Spacial AR also has the future in gaming industry, especially with the growth
of 3D games development.
3. Mobile Apps.
Mobile apps are the most growing and promising tool for AR experience at the
moment. Smartphones equipped with a camera, high resolution screen, sensors
and GPS tracker made it possible to process, receive and display additional
information triggered by real objects. User experience of mobile AR is about
seeing additional information on the screen of mobile device by pointing
smartphone camera at the trigger. This is still individual experience and
requires an app to be developed and installed.
Wikitude, Sekai Camera (now defunct), Layar and Junaio were the first apps
categorized as augmented reality browsers, but all of those used just GPS data.
[5]
Advanced AR using computer vision has become possible only recently with
the breakthough in image recognition technology for the last few years.
Google has built up very strong technology in the area of image recognition,
which can be applied to many domains, including optical character recognition
(OCR), face detection, and object recognition. On December 2, 2015 the
company announced a launch of Cloud Vision API which means that
developers can now use Google's programming interface to make their apps
recognise images. [4]
AR apps are developed within the following environments:
• Aurasma – web based tool – you just upload a trigger and the outcome and
voila! everyone who installs the app (both iOS and Android) and follows
you can enjoy your piece of augmented art ;)
• ARToolKit – requires an app to be built in XCode
• Vuforia – requires an app to be built in XCode, but is compatible with
Unity where an app can be developed without using XCode

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Since AR potentiates a commercial succes in retail and advertising, there are
numerous apps being customly developed for single brands. Among the most
popular examples are virtual fitting rooms, showrooms, virtual shopping
assistants.
The most widely known AR mobile apps in 2015 were platform-type apps
such as Aurasma and Blippar.
Aurasma works with companies to build digital scanners for supermarkets and
create promotional campaigns for supermarkets. It's also a platform that allows
user-generated targets and experiences.
Blippar postions itself as the first visual search engine. The company builds a
«Wikipedia of objects» and provides relevant information about the identified
object including description, videos, other locations, stores to buy if it is a
product, etc. [1]
While Blippar and Aurasma keep improving the technology, the biggest issue
behind them is their focus on selling to brands rather then creating smoth user
experience. Most users complaint that the apps don't work properly. This is
explained by limits of app knowledge bases that need to be constantly
enrinched using thorough customer feedback, user-generated content, and
machine learning. Both companies are also not widely known by end-users
and need to put more effort in promoting the benefits of AR to public and
building on user experience. [5]
Possible future developments
Augmented reality is defined by Gartner – a leading research company - as one of the
emerging technologies tat identify the computing innovations that organizations
should monitor and is included in the respective Gartner's 2015 Hype Cycle for
Emerging Technologies. [2]
The industrries that will benefit most out of AR development are consumer-focused
domains such as retail, marketing and advertising, travel and hospitality.
Based on the research made, I foresee the two major directions in the future of AR:
1. Visual Search.
2. User-defined targets.
Visual search means the ability to search for additional or augmented information
about physical objects with the use of just a smartphone camera. This is specifically
applicable to travel and hospitality domain targeting foreign travellers and expats who
face a strong need for translation on the go and navigation in foreign countries. Visual
search significantly improves customer experience by replacing the need for typing
unfamiliar words and object descriptions into text search browers. And while Google
or Yahoo require internet connection (dependance on Wi-Fi, broadband, or mobile
data), visual search engines rely on knowledge bases existing offline – the case of
Blippar building the Wikipedia of things is a good example of exploiting this trend.

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Figure 1. Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2015
Source: [2]
User-defined targets is another strong trend that can potentially become the base for
Media 3.0. It means that any object can be set up by anyone as a trigger. This opens a
big future for advertising industry. Any object in our environment is now a medium
and since there's no need to touch an object to add an overlay displayed through a
personal smartphone camera (new content is uploaded within an app) – it means
billions of free media channels.
In this regard, repeated objects are the most interesting subject. There are many
standard or same-looking object outdoor, indoor, and in digital space. We have the
same trash bins, road signs, benches around the city. Uploaded as a trigger once, all
bins around London – for example – become a media displaying an advertiser's brand
in millions of locations. For free. With the addition to marketing techniques such as
sales promotions, gamification, etc., this has a potential to become if not an
advertising network to compete with Facebook and Google, but at least a powerful
and cost-effective source for outstanding advertising campaigns.

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Bibliography
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15 Jan. 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/augmented-reality
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15 Jan. 2016. http://www.digitaltrends.com/android/best-augmented-reality-apps/
8. Wikipedia,. "Augmented Reality". N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Jan. 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality