Augmented Reality : An Explanation

Have you ever heard of the mobile game 'POKEMON GO' ? You simply walk around with the game open on your phone, which will buzz when pokemon are nearby, which you can catch using the pokemon go game app. 

But have you wondered - how come the pokemon(virtual, scripted, animation characters) are nearby in your surroundings? Well, the answer to this is augmented reality wherein the computer generated 3D imagery in the form of Pokemon, is superimposed on your real world. 

Augmented Reality is a new age technology that expands our physical real world by adding layers of digital information onto it i.e., by adding digitally generated images/information etc., on it and thus transforms our view of our surroundings.

The Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that transforms the view of physical real-world environment with superimposed computer-generated images, thus changing the perception of reality.

Augmented Reality Devices 

Many modern devices already support augmented reality - digital devices that can support sensors, cameras, accelerometer, gyroscope, digital compass, GPS, CPU, projected display etc.

Device suited for Augmented Reality can be one of these -

• Mobile Devices (smartphone and tablets).
• Special AR Devices such as head-up displays (HUD), designed purely and solely for augmented reality experience.  
• AR Glasses (or smart glasses) such as google glasses, Meta 2 classes, Laster see-thru, laforge AR eyewear, etc.,
• AR contact lenses (smart lenses).
• Virtual Reality Displays (VRD), creating images by producing laser light into the human eight.

Augmented Reality vs. Virtual Reality

While both augmented reality and virtual reality alter out view, augmented reality superimposes the generated imagery and information on our existing physical world and what we view is a mix of real world and digitally generated imagery/information, Virtual Reality, on the other hand, replaces the physical world around us with a virtual world altogether.

Augmented Reality (AR) -

1. Augmented Reality is a mix of the real world and the virtual world. 
2. It lets people interact between both worlds and distinguish clearly between both.
3. This is generally achieved by holding a smartphone in front of you.

Virtual Reality (VR) - 

1. Virtual Reality creates an entire virtual world.
2. In this case, it is hard to differentiate between what is real and what is not real.
3. This is generally achieved by wearing a helmet of goggles. 

In Virtual Reality, your screen becomes your world while in Augmented Reality, the world is your screen.

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