AUGMENTED REALITY

JOHN ISABOKE

BENARD YEGO

LEWIS MUNENE

GEOFFREY MUIRURI

TITUS NGARUIYA

JULIUS MUTHWII

WHAT IS AR?Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one. Augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally manipulable. Artificial information about the environment and its objects can be overlaid on the real world.

HISTORYHistory

The term augmented reality has been around since 1990 but that doesn’t mean that it was never there before. The moment man-made gadgets could relate to their environment and supply their users with information based on that, AR was there. It’s just that nobody thought to call it that.Below is the history of augmented reality from birth to where we are today.

Beginnings

From 1957, a gentlemen known by the name of Morton Helig began building a machine called the Sensorama. It was designed as a cinematic experience to take in all your senses and, shaped, rather like arcade machine from the 80s, it blew wind at you, vibrated the seat you sat on, played sounds to your eyes and projected a form of a stereoscopic 3D environment to the front and sides of your head. It was supposed to be impressive with its demo film of a cycle ride through the streets of Brooklyn but it never sold commercially and was very expensive to make films for largely because it involved the camera man having three cameras strapped to him at all times, and while it was really more an adventure in full virtual reality, there are clearly elements of AR involved with both the devices in place between the user and the environment and that fact that the environment itself was, itself, the real world viewed in a real time situation - even if recorded.

AR IS BORNWhile it might have been around for a few years in one shape or other, the phrase Augmented Reality is supposed to have been coined by Professor Tom Caudell while working in Boeing’s Computer Services' Adaptive Neural Systems Research and Development project in Seattle. In a search to find an easier way to help the aviation company’s manufacturing and engineering process he began to apply virtual reality technology and eventually came up with some complex software that could overlay the positions of where certain cables in the building process were supposed to go. It mean the mechanics didn't have to ask or try to translate from what they found described in abstract diagrams in manuals.

At the same time, in 1992, two other teams were made big steps into this new world. LB Rosenberg creates what’s widely recognised as the first functioniong AR system for the US Air Force known as VIRTUAL FIXTURES where fixtures were what he described as cues to help guide the user in their task and did so in very big letters.

THE APP REVOLUTIONUntil 1999, AR remained very much a toy of the scientist. Expensive, bulky equipment and complicated software all meant that the consumer never even knew of this growing field. As far as they were concerned, explorations into virtual worlds had died along with the Lawnmower Man. All that was to change though when Hirokazu Kato of the Nara Institute of Science and Technology released the ARToolKit to the open source community. For the first time, it allowed video capture tracking of the real world to combine with the interaction of virtual objects and provided a 3D graphics that could be overlaid on any OS platform. Although the smartphone was yet to be invented, it was what allowed a simple, handheld device with a camera and an internet connection to bring AR to the masses. Almost all of the Flash-based AR you see through your web browser will have been possible because of the ARToolKit.

THE FUTURE

With the phrase only coined in 1990 and the practice just reaching consumers two or three years ago, augmented reality is barely out of its embryonic stage. Relatively speaking, the devices are crude and the applications have only just started to get written but dawn has arrived in the AR world and it’s just beginning to get warm enough out there for people to enjoy. As databases of rich information grow and the speed and ease of connections to them rise,

BENEFITS•Combines real-world environments and virtual reality

•Real-world environments can interact with virtual objects.

•Virtual objects will respond to real-world physical actions.

•Interactive in real-time

•Real time processing

•Data can be generated in real time

•Registered in three dimensions

•Imagery is in 3D

•Graphics and Models are created by Designers

AUGMENTED REALITY VS. VIRTUAL REALITYAugmented Reality

System augments the real world scene

User maintains a sense of presence in real world

Needs a mechanism to combine virtual and real worlds

Hard to register real and virtualVirtual Reality

Totally immersive environment

Senses are under control of system

Need a mechanism to feed virtual world to user

Hard to make VR world interesting

APPLICATIONMilitary

In combat, AR can serve as a networked communication system that renders useful battlefield data onto a soldier's goggles in real time. From the soldier's viewpoint, people and various objects can be marked with special indicators to warn of potential dangers. Virtual maps and 360° view camera imaging can also be rendered to aid a soldier's navigation and battlefield perspective, and this can be transmitted to military leaders at a remote command center.

An interesting application of AR occurred when Rockwell International created video map overlays of satellite and orbital debris tracks to aid in space observations at Air Force Maui Optical System. In their 1993 paper "Debris Correlation Using the Rockwell WorldView System" the authors describe the use of map overlays applied to video from space surveillance telescopes. The map overlays indicated the trajectories of various objects in geographic coordinates. This allowed telescope operators to identify satellites, and also to identify - and catalog - potentially dangerous space debris.

APPLICATION CTND’Medical

Augmented Reality can provide the surgeon with information, which are otherwise hidden, such as showing the heartbeat rate, the blood pressure, the state of the patient’s organ, etc. AR can be used to let a doctor look inside a patient by combining one source of images such as an X-ray with another such as video.

Examples include a virtual X-ray view based on prior tomography or on real time images from ultrasound and confocal microscopy probes or visualizing the position of a tumor in the video of an endoscope.AR can enhance viewing a fetus inside a mother's womb.

Tourism and sightseeing

Augmented reality applications can enhance a user's experience when traveling by providing real time informational displays regarding a location and its features, including comments made by previous visitors of the site. AR applications allow tourists to experience simulations of historical events, places and objects by rendering them into their current view of a landscape. AR applications can also present location information by audio, announcing features of interest at a particular site as they become visible to the user.

IMPLEMENTATION To implement there are four things that we require to do find

user’s location find user’s orientation (view)generating information augmenting it to user’s view

Find user’s location

Find user’s orientation (view)

Generate data

Augment generated data to user’s view

Here are the three components needed to make an augmented-reality system work: display tracking system mobile computing power

Components

HEAD-MOUNTED DISPLAYS

Just as monitors allow us to see text and graphics generated by computers, head-mounted displays (HMDs) will enable us to view graphics and text created by augmented-reality systems

There are two basic types of HMDS:

video see-through optical see-through

VIDEO SEE THROUGH DISPLAYS

Block out the wearer's surrounding environment, using small video cameras attached to the outside of the goggles to capture images. On the inside of the display, the video image is played in real-time and the graphics are superimposed on the video. One problem with the use of video cameras is that there is more lag, meaning that there is a delay in image-adjustment when the viewer moves his or her head.

OPTICAL SEE THROUGH DISPLAY

Optical see through is not fully realized yet.It is supposed to consist of ordinary looking pair of glasses that will have light source on the side to project images onto the retina.

TRACKING AND ORIENTATION

The biggest challenge facing developers of augmented reality is the need to know where the user is located in reference to his or her surroundings.

There's also the additional problem of tracking the movement of users' eyes and heads.

GPS – TRACKING TECHNOLOGY

Currently, the best tracking technology available for large open areas is the Global Positioning System.

However, GPS receivers have an accuracy of about 10 to 30 meters, which is not bad in the grand scheme of things, but isn't good enough for augmented reality, which needs accuracy measured in millimeters or smaller.

GPS Network

REAL TIME DIFFERENTIAL GPS

There are ways to increase tracking accuracy. For instance, the military uses multiple GPS signals. There is also differential GPS, which involves using an area that has already been surveyed. A more accurate system being developed, known as real-time kinematic GPS, can achieve centimeter-level accuracy.

DIGITAL COMPASS

A digital compass consists of sensors to measure the earth's magnetic field, some conditioning of those sensor signals, and a microcontroller to interpret the data

Components Three magnetic sensors

One tilt sensor

MOBILE COMPUTING POWER

Wearable computers

Mobile computing can be accomplished with help of wearable computers

A wearable computer is a battery powered computer system worn on the user’s body(belt, backpack etc).

It is designed for mobile & predominantly hand free operations often incorporating head mounted display & speech input.

Smart Mobile phone and tablets

LIMITATIONS

Accurate tracking and orientation

For wearable augmented reality system, there are still enough computing power to create stereo 3D graphics

The size of AR systems is yet another problem.

RESEARCH AREAS (Optical) Tracking and Motion Capture,Mobile Augmented Reality,3D Interaction including Locomotion,Virtual Rehabilitation,

THREATS

The final category, and the hardest to predict, are entirely new applications which have little similarity to current applications. These threats will lean heavily on new capabilities and have the potential to revolutionize misuse. In particular, these applications will spring from widespread use, always on sensing, high speed network connectivity to cloud based data sources, and, perhaps most importantly, the integration of an ever present heads-up display, that current cell phones and tablets lack.

Regardless from which category new threats emerge, we assume that human nature and its puerile and baser aspects will remain constant, acting as a driving force for the inception of numerous malicious or inappropriate applications.

PRIVACY

Privacy

l What is privacy from a location stand-point?

– What are we trying to protect?

– Collection vs. use vs. distribution/transfer?

l Are existing privacy regimes applicable models?

– Is location data the same as medical records?

– Can meaningful notice and consent be obtained?

l Cultural differences must be considered.

l Opportunity costs?

– Will we try to regulate too early?

– What opportunities will be lost?

LEGAL ISSUES WITH AUGMENTED REALITY

Augmented Reality, as a concept has existed for decades. But, as indicated below, the time for the

commercialization of AR has finally arrived:

• In May 2008, Gartner Group identified AR as one of the top 10 disruptive technologies for 2008-2012 and

predicted it to be used by 30% of the mobile workforce by 2014.

• An April, 2010 article in Business Week states: “Augmented Reality is near the beginning of a meteoric rise

and it has the potential to affect every aspect of how we interact with technology.”

• Time Magazine listed AR among the Top 10 tech trends for 2010

• Google Trends shows that since 2009, the search terms surrounding AR have grown substantially

CONT…

the protection of your IP, and minimize liability for infringement of third party IP. Some of the considerations relevant

to these issues in AR systems are discussed below.

AR systems and services can embody a variety of forms of IP, including:

• Copyrights – despite common misconceptions, various aspects of AR can be copyrighted, including for

example certain aspects of:

o Maps - many people believe that maps are not subject to copyright, but this is not

necessarily true. Courts have found various aspects of maps to be copyrightable (See,

e.g., Mason v. Montgomery Data, Inc.)

o Databases and compilations of data (e.g., selection, arrangement and presentation of data)

OPPORTUNITY Augmented reality in smartphones is just getting started.

If you have a smartphone or Nintendo 3DS, you've probably played with some form of augmented reality, which superimposes graphics, words and other useful information over real-life images.

Yelp, for instance, offers its Monocle feature, allowing you to see local listings superimposed over the image captured by the phone's camera. It uses the compass and gyroscope to locate the specific listings, which move in and out of view depending on where you hold the device. The augmented browser Layar came to prominence by accomplishing the same feat on Android smartphones. Turn a Nintendo 3DS's camera on a special playing card, and a virtual monster leaps out on to the screen.

SECURITY

Security Concerns

Although augmented reality technology may be exceptionally helpful in the area of navigation, it may also have negative consequences. For instance, Wikitude’s ability to trace and locate physical things corresponding to virtual notes may pose the risk of an invasion of personal privacy. This is because Wikitude’s ability to locate markers is not limited to commercial of public places of interest but also extends to individual persons’ online activity (Wikitude, 2012). For instance, Wikitude is linked to the social website Twitter, and whenever a user of both Twitter and Wikitude publishes a post online, his or her location is recorded (2012). This allows the application to then provide information regarding the location of the user who posted a message on Twitter.