What is Augmented Reality (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. Unlike virtual reality, which creates a totally artificial environment, augmented reality uses the existing environment and overlays new information on top of it.
There are three types of AR:
- Image target, in which you overlay a real-world 2D image with video, text, images, or 3D objects
- Object recognition, in which you fix a digital 3D model to a real-world 3D object
- Plane detection, in which you fix a digital 3D model to a real-world flat surface
Advantages of AR Technology
- Through AR technology users can interact with the real world in real time.
- AR technology also enhances the perceptive power of humans.
- AR technology facilitates the users to ubiquitously and timely access to information that is required.
- It saves the time of users (doctors, surgeons, students etc.) on searching information about a particular topic.
- AR technology recognizes the user's freehand gestures and saves electricity to a large extent.
- Due to AR technology, information has become more realistic.
Disadvantages of AR Technology
- Many of the smartphones do not possess the capability of feeling the external camera in real time.
- AR technology could lead to people becoming more dependent on devices this may cause a large number of health-related issues.
- AR technology is not equipped with security policies. Intruders can hack the AR-based devices and can manipulate the devices according to their needs.
- It is expensive to develop AR based systems and its maintenance is also very expensive.