Where to use augmented reality

A few years ago it was still cool just to have augmented reality; a number of

appli-the development is towards applications where appli-the use of AR brings added value.

This is an important issue: an application designer should always consider wheth-er augmented reality really is the best technique for the mattwheth-er at hand and use AR only in those applications where it makes sense to do so. Furthermore, the features that support the purpose of the application should be the main concern.

Next, we summarise the main AR application types and key technologies and aspects in their development.

8.3.1 Guidance

Augmented reality has proved to be useful for inspection, maintenance and as-sembly tasks and training in many areas (e.g. surgery), etc. These are all areas where information related to performing a task is visualised for human operators in such a way that it gives the user a better understanding of the performance of the task. In traditional training, an apprentice follows how the master performs the tasks in this kind of situation.

In these application areas, a focus and content type NPR visualisation is often beneficial, as discussed in Sections 6.1.1 and 6.3. One of the main concerns is natural interaction with the system, e.g. multimodal interface, which we discussed in Section 7.1. Others are content creation and authoring (see Section 7.4). These kinds of applications often have task dependent requirements and functionalities, and thus require some amount of customisation, in comparison to AR browsers where new information environments can easily be added without modifications to the AR browser application.

8.3.2 Visualisation

AR is suitable for visualisation; it is used for visualising in interior design, planning, industrial design and prototyping. Here the (photo)-realistic rendering is often required and visual quality is habitually important. AR is suitable for interactive design, where people make real-time modifications to the model. It is also suitable for testing something on the user using a virtual mirror paradigm (haircut, clothes, glasses, etc.). Yet another important visualization area is building and tion, where on-site AR visualization enhances human’s understanding of construc-tion projects.

8.3.3 Games, marketing, motivation and fun

A third type of use is leisure and fun: games, motivating learning, advertising, etc.

The application development concentrates on the user interface, user interactions, enjoyment, playfulness, smoothness of the use, etc. Technology is often used in a creative way in these applications, and typically, user experience is a major priority.

8.3.4 Real-time special video effects

In digital printing personalisation is a technique where the printed material is cre-ated automatically from a digital source with personalised parts e.g. the user’s name “Dear Mrs Siltanen,…” Augmented reality enables marketing with personal-ised videos. A good example is the campaign for paying radio and TV fee launched at 2010 by Swedish state-owned company Radiotjänst i Kiruna. The campaign utilises web-based augmented reality in an impressive way. It takes a picture of a user, and then uses it to augment a high quality film. The user appears as the country’s hero in the film (see Figure 96).

Figure 96. Frames captured from the personalised video film (Radiotjänst i Kiruna,

“Hjälten” campaign). The system takes a picture of a user (using a webcam or user-defined image) and uses it to augment a film. As a result, the user appears as the hero within the video (Images presented with the permission of Radiotjänst i Kiruna).

Similarly, augmented reality can be used for product placement and advertising in the TV and film industry. The same product may appear under a different brand name in different countries. With augmented reality it can be replaced with the correct product in each occasion. Augmented reality product placement changes the marketing logic. A certain product in a film can appear under a different brand name in different showings. We will discuss the possibilities of AR in TV produc-tion a bit more in Secproduc-tion 8.4.1.

8.3.5 World browsers and location-based services

AR provides a means to link information to real world objects and certain loca-tions. It is used in AR browsers and other location-based services for visualising

tude), metro stations, shops, cafes, offers and museums. Location-based AR applications can provide more information on buildings, history, bus timetables and restaurant menus, and help with navigation. They can visualise weather (e.g.

Weather Reality), satellites (e.g. Satellite AR), star charts (e.g. Star Chart) and twitter tweets (e.g. Mixare).

AR location-based applications let the user define tags and points-of-interests and link them to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and other social media networks (e.g. Tagwhat and Sekai Camera). Users can share photos and see geo-tagged photos from other media such as Panoramio on-site (e.g. Photos Around).

Above application examples from Android market are just the tip of the iceberg.

It is impossible to list all of them. What they share in common is that they use GPS, camera and other mobile device sensors to locate the user, and to present information relevant to the current location or object. The function of applications is more than just AR, for instance social media/geo-local service. For example, Yelp’s monocle [268] is an application that visualises nearby restaurants and pro-vides user reviews. From the user’s point of view it is a location-based (social media) restaurant guide, where AR is the means for bringing information to the user.

8.3.6 Other

Augmented reality visualisation is used to support other tasks in the area of robot-ics, e.g. for collision-free robot programming as mentioned in Section 6.3.2 and for improving robotic operator performance [269, 270]. It also benefits many medical applications e.g. laparoscopic surgery. AR benefits all tasks, where real-time 3D visualisation of information on-site helps the human operator.