Living in an Augmented Reality

Just read this blog post, containing an interview with a guy named Robert Rice.  While much of it is a bit over the top self-promotion, pushing his “new vision” (read: things he’s going to be trying to sell this year or next), it’s refreshing to at least read commentary by someone who gets that AR isn’t really about “putting graphics in the world”, but about the what, who, why and how.  Or, as he puts it:

it is inherently about who YOU are, WHERE you are, WHAT you are doing, WHAT is around you, etc.

Of course, he then uses this to irrationally broaden the definition of AR to dismiss the idea that it includes putting graphics in the world.  As those who know me would expect, this irritates me for a few reasons.  First, it makes “discussion” impossible if everyone just goes off and redefines terms that have perfectly good existing definitions, just to suit their purposes (read:  lots of people want AR to be more broad because then it includes whatever it is they are working on). Second, AR drives peoples imagination precisely because of the “putting graphics in the world” aspect of it;  there are lots of other terms to describe location-based, context-aware, mobile applications (e.g., ubiquitous computing, pervasive computing, mixed reality, etc) without having to try and latch your non-AR concept onto the excitement AR generates!

All that said, it sounds like these folks are going to try and actually do mobile AR, which will be very cool.  Of course, it’s easier said then done, but I’ll be pretty excited if they manage to release something!

Until then, those of us doing AR research will continue plugging along.  I’m excited by this years projects, especially the mirror worlds work we are doing, where we are going to start combining terrascale virtual worlds with mobile AR worlds!  Just the kind of thing this guy is hinting at, although not on the scale he wants (we’ll stick with the campus for now, thanks!)

I have to admit I’m both optimistic and pessimistic at the same time about the Vuzix Wrap 920AV that was annouced at CES this year.  

Displays from companies like this (we have a bunch of them) are pretty low end, and haven’t really been suitable for virtual reality and augmented reality.  These ones are intriguing, though.  With see-through optics, they might actually be useful for “everyday” AR;  with two cameras and an (even cheap) orientation sensor, more interesting things might be possible! 

Of course, the proof will be in the implementation, not the specs or press.  If the cameras and orientation sensor are poor quality, if the field of view is too narrow, if they are uncomfortable, if the optics suck … any of these things will kill it.

But, we’ll probably still buy a bunch to play with.  Too bad they won’t give me a pre-release one soon!

Well, the new year is here, and the AR future looks very promising.  Last year was quite a year, both for AR and for me;  there was good and bad, but we have a new year now, and it promises to be quite a breakout year for AR.

Last month, Ori asked if I’d contribute some comments to his Wrap up 2008: Your Greatest Augmented Reality Moments post;  sadly, the end of last semester was way too busy, and I just wanted a break over the holidays, so I didn’t reply immediately … and then forgot.

But, I enjoyed his post, and thought I’d add a few comments on it here.  

Before I do, though, I must say that 2008 was an amazing year for AR, and 2009 only looks to be better!  

1. The Most fundamental AR milestone in 2008

Much technology continued to advance;  ISMAR 2008 was great, and the Tracking Competition saw some excellent progress demonstrated. New companies appeared (and I was involved with one), and a few new AR commercial demos happened (e.g., the Mini ad).

However, for me, it was all about handhelds.  The folks at Graz/Imagination have made great progress on getting tracking working better in their StbES system.  TI and NVidia released development kits for new mobile chipsets that will blow the socks off what we have in handhelds today, and Qualcomm and Intel have theirs on the horizon (the iPhone and G1 pale in comparison, but the thought of iPhone 2.0 with an OMAP3 or APX2500 makes me giddy!).  Heck, things are good enough that we managed to run a class across Georgia Tech and SCAD-Atlanta, where mixed teams of students from the two schools built 3 handheld AR games EACH over the course of a semester (videos will be up soon).  That would have been impossible a year ago.

Of course, the G1 and the iPhone were responsible for most of the hype, despite not actually being able to really do “real” AR yet (iPhone hacks by us and others notwithstanding).  

2) The best AR device of the year

To me, as you can tell from above, it’s undoubtably the new mobile chipsets.  Not really “devices” yet, but they are pretty amazing creatures.  When phones start appearing this year, amazing things will happen.

3) Best AR Demo

That’s really hard, especially because I’m fond of the ones we’ve been doing here.    I actually think a couple of the games that were done in my class could rank up there, but we haven’t posted them for others to see yet, so they aren’t really “in the running.”

I agree with Charles on Ori’s blog, the Haunted Book was excellent.

I think the Mini ad deserves mention, for it’s wide distribution.  I was also surprised by the FlashAR demo that is floating around;  getting AR working inside Flash is pretty cool.

4) Person of the AR year

Ha!  I’ll recuse myself here, for fear of offending friends who I don’t pick.  I really don’t think any one person deserves it, though.  There was nothing THAT amazing done by a single person to earn such an honor!

5) The most significant AR deal of 2008

I’m not sure anything stands out, really.  Lots of smallish things happening, lots of announcements of work starting (MediaPower’s AR efforts, Metaio’s publishing deal, Total Immersion, Imagination, etc), but nothing that has landed and been successful and blows away the rest.  

There are some amazing things likely to happen this year, though! 

6) A disappointment

I, too, am sad the Giz hasn’t yet come back.  We actually used original Giz’s in the class I mentioned, and they are a pretty capable device, considering their age.  A few limitations, but still better than anything else we could use!  Let’s hope for 2009!

7) Last minute find: A Surprising Simplicity in AR

I actually am not too excited about the Sketchup/AR Media combo.  Much more exciting is the AR-in-Flash demo; totally cool work.