AR Comes of Age

AV Magazine
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AR is finally maturing from research lab and specialist areas to become a relevant technology for the b2b space, reports Adrian Pennington


Until around 10 years ago AR was the domain of research labs and specialist fields, such as brain surgery and military head-up displays. The tipping point for marketing came when webcams became commonplace and software improved frame rates to the point where lag was all but eliminated.
“The result was an almost magical rendering of objects moving in space as if glued to real world features,” says Jim Gant, founder and director, Inition. “This was engaging and AR exploded on to the scene as a new and alluring way for brands to communicate.”

What’s the business worth?
Analyst TechNavio expects the global market for this technology to top $1 billion by 2018 by which time Juniper Research predicts the number of AR users worldwide will have risen to 200 million compared with today’s 60 million. Mobile AR revenue is expected to hit $5.2 billion by next year (Juniper). Consequently, the industry developing AR applications is also growing. ABI Research estimates that developer investment in AR will top $2.5 billion by 2018 (from $670 million in 2013).
According to Assieh Khamsi, marketing manager, Blippar there are two main application areas: the consumer space - using AR as an intelligent eye for visual browsing; and enterprise - where it can be harnessed for training, engineering, medicine, construction and education. In the fashion and cos- metics world Holition’s virtual makeover app has recently been used at the V&A.

What is augmented reality?
It’s any method of adding a small pro- portion (under 25 per cent) of digital information relative to places and things viewed through headgear such as smart glasses or via tablets and smartphones. Ideally, the information will enhance (augment) your understanding of the environment. It’s distinct from virtual reality where users do not see their real world surroundings and users interact within a virtual world. This leaves an interesting middle ground, known as mixed reality, augmented virtuality or AR AV.
Augmented reality comes in two flavours. 2D AR adds labels and images as a dynamic infographic overlaid on to the real world. 3D AR allows one to place objects into a scene – think furniture into apartments, cars into showrooms, buildings into landscapes. A typical approach is to use fiducial markers - an object placed in the field of view of an imaging system which appears in the image produced for use as a point of reference or a measure.

How does it work?
AR applications generally use one of two approaches: marker-based and location-based.
“Markers work by having software recognise a particular two-dimensional pattern via a camera on a device, triggering either audio or visual content to be overlaid on that point on the screen,” explains Andrew Maher at Engage. “You can create links for your triggers and content on different channels within the software so you can dictate who has access to certain bits of content. This means the same trigger could bring up different content for different groups of users.”
Markerless AR is more computation- ally complex but similar in principal. Instead of static images, GPS verifies your location and links to certain content. “These triggers are typically land- marks native to the areas that are contextually related to the content your triggers hold,” explains Maher. “The complexity lies in how the information is extracted by the software based on what it can see via the device’s camera as well as GPS co-ordinates, and how that information is overlaid to interact with the pre-existing environment.”

Wider adoption problems
The scope for AR is huge. It can project a wide range of information in the form of text, images, video and interactive 3D representations and animations. The technology is still, however, struggling with a fundamental problem. “How can you present this in a natural, efficient and desirable way to users?” poses Jason Higgins, md, at augmented reality studio, Harmony.
Foremost among limitations is the software used in the AR process, particularly building a realistic 3D representation of surrounding objects from a
2D camera image. “The virtual device must understand the physical reality around it. Humans are very, very good at this and we are hard to fool,” says Gant. “When devices succeed in persuading our senses of a reality that’s made up, the results are compelling.” Stuart Hetherington, ceo, Holovis agrees: “At the moment the way information is presented is limited and with devices that go on your head being cumbersome and occlusive of those around you this makes it difficult to analyse business problems as a group. Once a more standardised way of delivering this data has been created the process of adoption will move very quickly.”
As Hetherington suggests, hardware used to present AR is problematic. “Until now, AR has been on multi-pur- pose smart devices and PCs which work well but are not designed for the best user experience,” informs Higgins. Low cost, mass market wearable com- puting will start to change the perception and use of AR. The starting point is smartphones through which most consumer AR is displayed. Smart glasses, such as Epson Moverio and Google Glass point the way forward for AR displayed with a more natural line of sight. Samsung’s Gear VR, Microsoft’s Hololens and Google’s Magic Leap are all tackling the headset challenges. This space is where VR and AR combine.
“Tablets have unique advantages and will remain in the mix even after head- set devices becomes commonplace,” says Gant.

Other challenges
Intuition: The process of using AR still needs explaining in most circumstances, says Higgins, for example: ‘Download an app, open, point the app at the object, interact as desired.’
Novelty: “Much of the consumer AR is short lived, low value and, ultimately, detrimental to the technology,” says Higgins. As more higher value purposes are implemented, greater understanding of AR’s benefits will follow.
HTML5: In the consumer market, the installation of an app for a relatively short use is problematic. The next generation of AR will probably be web-based rather than app-installed, easing the process of use and understanding.
“The likely pivot point for AR is 2016 onwards as these hurdles reduce and accessibility increases,” believes Higgins. For Blippar’s Khamsi the main challenges curtailing the growth of AR are user education; a requirement for internet connectivity; a willingness to use the technology; camera device quality, and privacy issues.

What does AR do well?
“As a communication technology, AR achieves that heady state where the technology disappears and leaves a sense of something magical happening,” says Gant. “AR is engaging and the devices are low cost, making it ideal for events and touchpoints. It is also versatile. We can point the camera at the audience and make them the protagonist of the story, or hand them a tablet and turn them into directors.”
According to Higgins, AR is good at a lot of things – playing a video, playing a game, seeing simple things floating in the air – but there are other tools better at doing this than AR: “We can show complex things in an intuitive way which, if done well, can increase understanding by 20-25 per cent.”
One intriguing teleconferencing application by Finnish VR researchers VTT and IBM used AR techniques to display avatars of remote participants in a physical room. The avatars were based on the sim game Second Life and could be viewed through participants in real physical spaces through smart glasses.

Recommendations for use
Don’t use AR for AR’s sake. “Technology as a gimmick will only work once or twice,” says Gant. As long as the technology is applied in the right way and is fulfilling these needs, “the cost of the initial investment should become irrelevant,” affirms Hetherington.
“AR is a tool – not an entire solution,” says Higgins. Its application needs to be carefully thought through with the problem it is setting out to solve clearly defined. “It is essential it is used as an enabling technology embedded into the workflow,” adds Hetherington.
Information employees need to do their jobs is not always available when, where or how they need it. AR systems can take knowledge access, share and transfer to a new level.
“Wearing smart glasses, a remote or mobile employee can gain immediate hands-free access to appropriate subject matter from the company’s cloud-based files and apply it to a real world situation,” suggests Rob Clark, v-p business development, Epson Europe. “This is proving particularly valuable in remote diagnostics and engineering, so technicians can lay virtually seen schematics or the inner workings of a component over the top of the real thing, along with instructions on how to identify, work with or fix specific issues.”

Cost
AR projects vary from £5,000 to £100,000 depending on objectives, content, interactivity and source material.
“Understanding the technology can greatly reduce requirements of the applications,” says Higgins. Harmony often builds part-funded proof of concepts for the client to feel how the idea may work. “We understand how the customer may use the application and what issues are best considered early on.”
Since devices are inexpensive, and distributed deployment feasible, the bulk of investment lies in creative, design and development. Says Gant: “Arming a sales team with augmented iPads to bring to life the mode of action of a drug in front of doctors’ eyes is economically viable. Rolling out an in-car mixed reality experience across 200 car showrooms is similarly achievable.”
For longer term adoption users have to judge what tangible benefit the technology enables. “An augmented mirror that allows wearers to try on virtual watches or glasses has potential for retail,” suggests Gant. “It couldn’t be done before. It is in arenas like this that AR will flourish in the long term.”



Tech Developments

Google (with Project Tango) and Intel (RealSense) are bringing to market new devices that can ‘see’ the world in 3D via what are known as RGB-D (red, green, blue and depth) sensors. “With the ability to understand depth information, mobile devices become significantly more powerful when it comes to AR and computer vision tasks,” says Peter Meier, co-founder of AR software developer, Metaio.

For Harmony’s Jason Higgins, depth-sensing camera devices are a powerful addition as they allow environment mapping, gesture control and improved object recognition. “They make a huge difference in the speed, accuracy and flexibility of recognition.”

“Technology such as Leap Motion is allowing mixed reality to bring our own hands and bodies back into vision again,” says Inition’s Jim Gant. “Anything that gives the software a better sense of the space and objects around it helps to convince the user of the veracity of the scene.”

Google, Qualcomm and film production Legendary Entertainment has pumped $542 million into closely guarded start-up Magic Leap which reportedly has a headgear which projects images on to users’ eyes.

The tech will get a high profile workout as part of the Manchester International Festival in July when VFX house Framestore will make use of it to tell the story of the universe in a live public performance.