Today we will look at a bit of history, technology, art and applications of augmented reality.
As we look at these examples, consider what makes augmented reality different than other 3D graphics applications?
History
The concept of augmented reality has existed in science fiction and other sources for a long time.
The "Pepper's Ghost" light projection is an example of an early attempt at creating augmented reality with technology. This is more similar to current hologram technology, but it had a similar goal, imposing the virtual on top of real.
Ivan Sutherland - Head Mounted Display (1968)
In 1990, the term augmented reality is coined by Thomas Caudell while working on training technology for Boeing airplanes. Much of early augmented reality technology is developed for flight, navigation and military training.
There are several different types of augmented reality that use different data, primarily from computer vision, to find and identify objects or locations in the real world.
Marker based augmented reality use unique marker detection to find an object in space and superimpose an image or 3d scene.
Feature detection, or markerless augmented reality, recognizes flat surfaces or specific features in an environment.
Face detection is another form of feature detection that recognizes human faces and expressions.
Location based augmented reality uses geolocation data to superimpose points of interest in space.
Commercial applications
We've already seen a few examples of the commercial applications of augmented reality with Pokemon Go, Ikea and Snapchat.
