Oct 12, 2011

Augmented Reality

We’ve been talking about Augmented Reality for a couple of days now.  On the first day, we started with why Augmented Reality is a technology that’s likely to break out in a post titled Not Just Steak, Not Just Sizzle, but A Sizzling Steak.   The gist is that augmented reality allows the user to interact with an object digitally in a way that would normally be impossible unless they had access to the physical object.  A good example is the Nissan IQ that we looked at yesterday.   The whole point of this kind of augmented reality is that it gives the producer a broader palette than words, images, or even video.   It gives the subscriber the ability to interact with the object in real time.    It gives the subscriber,client, customer, prospect full control over their experience.   Even just a few years ago, the hardware to do this well, wasn’t in everyone’s pocket or purse.   Over the last few years, advances like the newest iPhones and iPads make the experience a lot more portable.   This trend is likely to continue and help make augmented reality commonplace.

Yesterday we talked about a particular type of augmented reality called marker based augmented reality.  If you haven’t been following along, you can watch the video in my Augmented Reality Comparison of Different Types post from yesterday.

And, as I promised, today’s post will be about markerless augmented reality or marker-less augmented reality.  I had a video from Ben & Jerry’s that shows an example of markerless augmented reality, but even though it’s Ben & Jerry’s it isn’t the highest quality example I could find.   I do really like their ice cream, their concerts, and their overall take on business, so I thought I’d give them a plug anyway!

 

Marker-Less Type Augmented Reality

 

As the name implies, markerless augmented reality is essentially the same as it’s marker based cousin.  The only real difference from a consumer’s perspective is that the surface the object is sculpted on doesn’t have to have that high contrast QR-like code to identify the surface’s position in 3d space.    This can be more attractive and help to focus the consumer’s eyes on the object rather than the marker.  Still, the free-form nature of the marker offers options for customization that might be exploited by a clever marketing team.  Here’s a video of a markerless augmented reality from Sony.   Personally, I’m a little puzzled by the inclusion of the x-y-and-z coordinates being painted in the image. I’m not sure why they left that in there, but there clearly isn’t a marker on the surface.

 

Markerless Augmented Reality Video Example

 

Markerless Augmented Reality Pros

Freedom is the best thing about markerless augmented reality.  As we hinted at yesterday, you can customize a marker’s appearance.  It doesn’t have to look like  a barcode or a QR code.  But, it does still has to have high contrast and sharp corners in order for that technology to find and determine the location of the surface in 3d space.  This limits the designer’s freedom.  That’s bad!  But worse, it forces the producer to find a way to deliver the marker to the consumer.  If you look for examples on the web, you’ll find lots of them.  Most of them ask you to download and print the marker.  This hurdle creates friction in the process.  It slows the impulse and ensures that it isn’t portable.   Markerless augmented reality solutions remove the burden from the consumer.  They streamline the process and make it, essentially, instantaneous.  Ask any retailer to talk to you about impulse purchases and the effect they have on the bottom line.  Markers increase friction.

 

Markerless Augmented Reality Cons

 

While it’s true that markers increase friction and place a burden on the consumer, currently, markers are designed to be easier to find in 3D space.  That’s their only purpose for being, so they’re very good at it.  A markerless solution places the onus on the producer to deliver a system that is more capable of discerning any object in 3D space.  As you might imagine, this task is fraught with difficulties and has many practical boundaries.   The easiest surfaces to locate in 3D space are still likely to be those that are flat with sharp corners, like a book or a magazine.   Of course, asking someone to pick up  a book, magazine, or some other flat object with sharp corners is a lot trouble than asking them to download and print out a marker.

 

Conclusion:

 

There are pros and cons for both types we’ve talked about to date: Markerless and Marker Based Augmented Reality.   In yesterday’s post, I gave you a link to a great tutorial from Instant Reality on how you or your development team can build a marker based solution.  Today, I’ll give you another great tutorial that will show you how to create a markerless augmented reality solution.  Most of the hard visual recognition work is already done for you so it isn’t as hard as it used to be.  Here’s the link to the tutorial for creating a markerless augmented reality solution.  Once again it comes from the good team over at Instant Reality.

 

 

 

Augmented Reality Marker-Less, 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating