Do you recall the original Terminator movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger portraying a cyborg sent from the future to kill someone in our time? On a number of occasions during the movie, we saw the world through the cyborg's eyes, with additional information being overlaid on the scene he was observing.
This was an early depiction of augmented reality, which refers to 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, graphical, and textural data.
About 12 years ago I saw some very interesting work in the augmented reality arena, including a pilot flying a plane with a computer screen in front of him instead of a window (his co-pilot did have a window and was poised to take over if there were any problems).
A photorealistic 3D model of the outside world was displayed on the screen in front of the pilot. This was augmented with imagery from a variety of radar systems (so if something flew in front of the plane, it would appear on the screen).
The interesting thing was that the pilot was attempting a real-world landing at a small airport in a tricky, mountainous terrain. Displayed on the screen in front of the pilot was a “corridor” of rectangles in the form of glowing lines that were superimposed on the scene. It looked like a computer game, with the pilot flying his real-world plane down the “corridor.”
The idea was that, even at night or on a foggy day, the pilot could be presented with a scene that looked as though the world was in bright daylight. My understanding is that pilots consistently achieved better landings using this experimental technology than they did using more traditional approach techniques.
Of course, this was some time before the days of smartphones and tablets and us all having GPS-based location information at our fingertips. There are already a variety of forms of augmented reality that are commercially available, with many more on the way. Personally, I don’t think that many of us really have a clue as to how pervasive augmented reality has the potential to become.
Take a look at this YouTube video, for example. This depicts a variety of possible augmented reality scenarios in which a young lady looks at the world through the screen of her smartphone.
When she points it at the sky, she is presented with the immediate weather forecast, along with a simulation of raindrops falling on her screen. When she points the smartphone at an art gallery, she is informed as to current exhibits. Looking at a tram via the smartphone returns details as to destinations and schedules. Pointing the smartphone at a hotel provides an indication as to which rooms are currently occupied and which remain available.
What other sorts of augmented reality information could be presented to us? Well, let's return to that in a moment but — before we go there — let's first consider how this augmented reality information might be presented to us. One approach — as we've already seen in the video above — is to view the world through the screen of a smartphone or tablet computer.
Another alternative might be something along the lines of Google Glass. This has the advantage of being relatively unobtrusive, but it doesn’t really offer a fully immersive experience.
I think a lot of it depends on the quantity and quality of augmented data that is made available to us. If there were to be sufficient data, then it wouldn’t surprise me if — sometime in the not-so-distant future — we were to see people walking around in public sporting a full-up Oculus Rift-type display.
What? You think this couldn’t happen? Well, all I can say is that I bet when you saw the original Star Trek featuring Lieutenant Uhura with an oddly-shaped communicator module stuck in her ear, you would never have expected to actually see people strolling down the street with flashing Bluetooth earpieces.
As an aside, my 70-year-old mother-in-law has long hair. She also has a Bluetooth earpiece linked to her smartphone, and this system is set to automatically turn on if anyone calls. I had no idea she was so in tune with the times. We were strolling around a supermarket together when she suddenly commenced to have what seemed to be a one-way conversation with herself, arguing vehemently and giving herself orders. I honestly feared she had gone insane (it turned out she was talking with her administrative assistant; the jury's still out on the question of insanity). But we digress…
The advantage of wearing something like an Oculus Rift is that you do get a fully immersive experience. Also, you can change reality to suit your whims. It could be midnight in the real world, but your display could present the scene around you as though it were midday, or vice versa, of course. The downside is that it's somewhat bulky and you would tend to look like a bit of a plonker. On the other hand, once enough people are doing it, this could become the new reality (pun intended), in which case it wouldn’t be long before we were inundated with designer models.
What about the farther future? Well, there are already experiments going on to embed LEDs in contact lenses. I can imagine a time when contact lenses have the capability to project high-resolution textual and graphical imagery directly onto their owners' retinas. At some stage, it wouldn’t surprise me if it became possible to have such equipment embedded in the eye itself.
What do you think regarding the various technologies that might be used to present augmented reality information? Do you agree with my thoughts above? Do you vehemently disagree? Can you offer any other suggestions? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
Also, earlier on in this column, I said “What other sorts of augmented reality information could be presented to us?” Don’t answer this now, because I'm going to post Part 2 of this miniseries tomorrow, but you could certainly start noodling on this question and we'll see if what you come up with matches my hopes and fears.
This article was originally published on EBN's sister publication EE Times .