augmented reality

What is Augmented Reality? Learn Everything Here!

25 March 202325 March 2023

Augmented reality is here to stay, whether you enjoy online shopping, applying Snapchat effects to your face, or determining how an item of IKEA furniture will work in your home.

By 2030, it is predicted that applications for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) could enhance the world economy by £1.4 trillion.

Virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) has been used by 56% of businesses in some capacity, and 35% are contemplating it.

The market is utilizing this cutting-edge innovation to comprehend its potential while researching and developing the basics of augmented reality technology.

Learn more about what is augmented reality, what types of augmented Reality are, and how augmented really works.

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that allows you to see your real-world surroundings while adding a digital augmentation overlay of pictures, sounds, or text that reinforces your reality.

It is a technologically enhanced representation of the real physical world that uses digital visual elements, music, or other sensory stimuli. Businesses specifically engaged in mobile computing and business applications are noticing a growing tendency in this direction.

One of the main objectives of augmented reality apps, in the midst of the growth of data collection and analysis, is to draw attention to particular aspects of the real world, foster comprehension, and produce clever and approachable insight that can be used in practical contexts. It can assist businesses in making decisions and provide insight into customer spending patterns.

Types of Augmented Reality!

Check out the following types of Augmented Reality:-

Market-based AR

Marker-based AR apps place digital content on top of specific physical pictures, referred to as markers, that are detected by the camera. A marker could be a physical thing or a visual, like a logo, a placard, or a QR code. The business card serves as a marker for the augmented reality app development, which shows more digital content when it comes into contact with the card.

Markerless Augmented Reality

One of the most commonly used uses in the field is markerless augmented reality. Because location-detecting characteristics in smartphones are so readily available, it is also referred to as location-based AR.

Most users of this kind of software are travelers. Aside from that, it assists users in discovering interesting places within their present location.

This technique reads information from the mobile device’s GPS, digital compass, and accelerometer while anticipating the user’s point of concentration. The main goal of this AR is to display location data regarding items that can be seen through the user’s camera on the screen.

Projection-based AR

Projections-based augmented reality development feels more alluring and authentic, just like anything else that is out of our grasp. By virtue of its name, projection-based AR uses projection onto objects to perform its tasks.

You can create an airborne fortress or a dialer with projection-based augmented reality. Noninteractive AR approaches are one of the widely used projection-based methods. It is possible to generate a false impression of an object’s position, orientation, and depth by projecting images onto it.

Superimposition Augmented Reality

Superimposition-based augmented reality app development is among the popular types of Augmented reality used to overlay digital content on top of the real-world environment. This technique involves detecting real-world objects or images and then using them as markers to place virtual objects or information onto the screen of a mobile device or a smart glasses display.

One of the most common applications of superimposition-based AR is in gaming. For example, the popular mobile game Pokemon Go uses this technique to superimpose virtual creatures onto a real-world environment.

Superimposition-based AR is also used in a variety of other industries, such as education, retail, and tourism.

How does Augmented Reality actually work?

The first step in the process of AR is to recognize and understand the real-world environment. This is done using cameras, sensors, and GPS to identify the user’s location, as well as any objects or images in the user’s field of view. The software then processes this information to create a 3D model of the environment.
The second step involves overlaying digital content in the real-world environment. This is done by using the 3D model created in the first step to place virtual objects or information in the user’s field of view. This content can be static or dynamic and can include anything from images and videos to text and 3D models.
The final step in the process is to render the augmented reality app content onto the user’s screen. This involves using the device’s display, such as a smartphone or AR headset, to show the user the augmented content in real-time. The content is superimposed onto the real-world environment in a way that makes it appear as if it is part of the user’s surroundings.

Ar vs VR vs MR vs XR

AR, VR, MR, and XR are all related technologies that offer different levels of immersion and interaction with virtual content. While AR and VR offer unique experiences, MR and XR bridge the gap between the real world and virtual content, offering new and exciting ways to interact with digital environments.

Let’s know more about the differences!

Augmented Reality (AR): AR overlays digital content in the real-world environment. This technology allows users to see and interact with virtual objects in the real world.
Virtual Reality (VR): VR creates a fully immersive digital environment that completely replaces the real world. It uses a headset or other devices to create a completely simulated environment where users can interact with digital objects and environments.
Mixed Reality (MR): MR combines both the real world and virtual content to create a new environment where digital objects and the physical world interact with each other. MR offers a more immersive experience than AR, as virtual objects can be anchored to the real world, and users can interact with them in a more natural way.
Extended Reality (XR): XR encompasses all of the above technologies. It refers to any experience that combines the real world and virtual content, including AR, VR, and MR.

Bottom Line

In conclusion, augmented reality development is a groundbreaking technology that merges the digital and physical worlds, offering endless possibilities for innovation and creativity. AR applications are becoming more accessible and affordable, enabling various industries to leverage their benefits in improving user experience, enhancing learning, and increasing engagement.

From interactive gaming to immersive education, AR provides a unique and engaging experience that has the potential to transform the way we interact with technology and the world around us.

As technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more exciting and innovative uses of AR in the future.

If you are looking forward to leveraging this technology, you can reach out to professionals at Kaalo. Our team will understand your needs and design a tech-driven solution.

What’s the Difference Between AR, VR, MR and XR?

28 June 202228 June 2022

AR, VR, MR, XR…There are a lot of acronyms tumbling around the internet concerning reality. But before we get into the modifiers, let’s talk about what reality is. When we say “reality,” we usually mean the physical world. Each person’s experience of reality is somewhat subjective, based on simple things like the way they see color and more complex factors like how they perceive an event based on their unique past experience.

Physical reality (without any digital enhancement) is at one end of what’s called the “virtuality continuum,” first introduced by Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino. Virtual reality — a full-immersive digital environment with the “real” physical environment completely blocked out — is at the other extreme. The other terms fall in the middle and around them.

Augmented reality is one step away from standard reality toward the digital end of the spectrum. With AR, digital elements are superimposed onto physical reality, giving us a composite environment made up of both real and digital elements. You can get an AR view through smart glasses or an app on your smartphone. Accuvein technology, which projects vein locations on a patient’s arm to increase accuracy during blood draws, is a good example.

Mixed Reality

You can imagine mixed reality in the center of the spectrum. Like AR, MR projects digital overlays onto the physical environment, but MR allows the user to interact with those digital elements as well. You can see the virtual dog in front of you and also scratch it behind the ears. Think of Tony Stark swooping those 3D digital diagrams around his multimillion-dollar “workshop.”

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality is a totally digital environment with nothing of the real world remaining in view. VR often makes use of sight and sound to create an immersive experience but when touch is added, it becomes even more real for participants. The ultimate example of VR? The Matrix (of course). Here’s an entertaining video of the Fulham players struggling with a virtual reality “walk the plank challenge,” even though they know the height isn’t real.

Extended Reality

Extended reality or “XR” is the easiest to explain. It’s an umbrella term that encompasses all of the aforementioned ways of using digital content in our environments — everything from Pikachu projected onto the sideway in Pokémon Go, to well, again, The Matrix. AR, MR and VR are all types of XR.

The exciting thing about AR and MR in particular is how they are already being used. Apps can provide digital, 3D interactive manuals. Instructions for manufacturing and assembly can be projected right onto complex products to prevent costly mistakes. Driving directions can populate on a heads-up display so directions are step-by-step on the road in front of you. Once you have a basic grasp of what each of these terms means and how they fit on the continuum, it’s easy to see where they are already popping up in our very real world.

an augmented reality design model of a stretcher

How Augmented Reality Models Change the Design Game

16 June 202216 June 2022

Building a product model or prototype takes time, money, materials and energy. And yet it is a necessary step in the design process to present your design to a stakeholder. Facts and figures, even 2-D diagrams only get you so far before everyone wants to see what the laptop, new medical device or treadmill is actually going to look like and how it will function. Augmented reality enables a virtual prototype that works just like a real, physical version, complete with a 3-D model that can be rotated, opened and taken apart at less cost using fewer resources.

Augmented Reality models revolutionize the design process.

AR Reduces Prototype Cost

Prototypes are often the largest expense in the product development process and can account for up to 80 percent of the development budget. Oftentimes, the first iteration of a model isn’t the final one, and creating updated versions takes even more time and money. With AR, models can be generated and modified in far less time, with less cost and less waste. And they can be delivered easily anywhere in the world, which brings us to our next point: accessibility.

AR Models are More Accessible

Shipping a model to a customer for a demonstration in their own space is costly and requires a couple of days’ lead time for shipping. If you are flying stakeholders out to observe a model, that cost is likely even higher. With AR models and prototypes, that product demonstration can happen in 3-D for many people at one time in multiple locations, delivered digitally, with no need to pay for expensive shipping or travel. Users can manipulate the 3-D models at will without safety concerns and without fear of damaging the product.

Better than 2-D Design

With larger, more complex design, 2-D modeling is often all you get. Vizworx President Jeff LaFrenz said that when designing an airplane, AR models can save a lot of rework. In a standard design review, a 3-D image is projected onto a 2-D screen, and the loss of dimension makes it difficult to discern how it will work in the real world. Mistakes are often not corrected until they’ve begun production. “We don’t get the insight around those spaces until we’re in them,” he said. “That’s where AR allows insights. We can reduce significantly the cost of infrastructure design and construction by giving them a spatial understanding through AR.”

Augmented reality models outperform physical models in all areas. They are less expensive, easier to modify, more accessible, more accurate than 2D models and produce less waste. AR product models are the future and none too distant.

Why People Don’t Read and How AR Can Fix That

09 June 202209 June 2022

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.”
~ Steve Jobs, 2008

Steve Jobs said this in response to queries about the possibility of Apple developing an e-reader almost 15 years ago. His cited statistic is debatable, but we are all bombarded by things we HAVE to read in order to discover what is important and what is trash — emails, spammy texts and the thick paper guides that still come with many of the products we buy. It’s no wonder that to preserve our limited attention spans and our sanity, we have started ignoring text instead of reading it.

How, then, do you get people’s attention? How do you teach them about a product when we have all become so skeptical of giving our time and attention to the written word which we fear may be worthless? Imagine packaging, brochures and catalogs that can provide everything the addictive internet can — animation, audio and video in three dimensions — through augmented reality (AR).

Kaalo’s augmented reality app, KAR, brings text to life.

Catalogs in Augmented Reality

Instead of trying to pare down a laptop’s stats into digestible bits of text that still include crucial, yet often dry, information like screen dimension, processing speed and storage capability, imagine someone could point their phone at the catalog image, see that laptop in their own space and have all of that data presented to them in interactive 3-D. The image can even be rotated and disassembled for the truly curious.

AR Packaging

Augmented reality packaging serves two purposes: marketing the product before the consumer purchases it and helping them figure out how it works once they’ve taken it home. Instead of cramming all that text info onto a box or plastic package, buyers can point their phones at it and learn all they need to know via audio, video and infographics presented in augmented reality. After the purchase, Kaalo’s augmented reality app, KAR, can help them with setup without having to include a lengthy manual in eight different languages. (The app can act as a translator as well.)

Jobs may have been right that the way we interact with text and reading is changing, but with change comes an opportunity to rise to the challenge. KAR caters information to the modern mind, the discriminating reader, all while reducing the need for so much paper. Kaalo recognizes that, in order to continue to meet consumers’ needs, we must grow. Because, as another well-known entrepreneur once said…

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”
~ John C. Maxwell

How a New AR App Makes Online Shopping Fun Again

01 June 202201 June 2022

KAR, Kaalo’s augmented reality app, lets you view catalog images in 3-D.

You shop online a lot; we all do — all two billion of us and counting, according to data from 2020. The convenience of ordering a pair of shoes, a sofa or a new laptop from your living room beats driving to multiple stores to compare prices before finally making a purchase. The downside? You can’t see how those shoes look on your feet before you buy them or whether that couch would work, in blue, in your space. Is a 15-inch screen laptop big enough for your purposes? You have to imagine it, and if you’re wrong, you return, exchange and wait all over again. Existing augmented reality (AR) technology can help with that.

AR Catalog Images in 3D

KAR, Kaalo’s augmented reality app, lets you view catalog images in 3-D. You can rotate the product, explode its parts, explore what it would look like in various colors or with different materials or features. You can try those shoes on, virtually, and see whether you like them better on your feet in red or black. Project that sofa into your living room and see if it works with your current coffee table. Take the image of your potential new computer and rotate it, take it apart and explore all of its features in three dimensions. When you decide, KAR includes a “buy” button taking you directly to a secure e-commerce platform to make your purchase seamless.

What Kaalo’s AR App Can Do

KAR can apply this augmented reality technology to…

shopping
remodeling
demos
presentations

Interactive print technology, using augmented reality, brings static print to life in brochures, packaging and point-of-sale terminals with animations, audio, video and infographics — fully animated, three-dimensional details you can’t get from traditional print marketing. How cool is that? Stay tuned for more Kaalo AR posts coming soon.

Augmented Reality Brings Print to Life

22 May 202222 May 2022

For years, people have been talking about print media becoming obsolete and indeed, publications have struggled to remain relevant and financially viable. After all, why research a new product or plan your vacation with magazines when the internet puts not only text and images but video and interactive content at your fingertips. But what if the way for print media to maintain its usefulness isn’t in rejecting technology but by embracing it through augmented reality?

AR can, like its name says, augment printed materials. It can provide three-dimensional, rotatable, expandable models based on the images in books or magazines. It can call up supportive videos for more information. It can also provide translation in different languages and accessibility for people who are visually or auditorily challenged.

AR for Books

In a world where children often learn to operate digital tablets before they can talk, augmented reality can provide an enhanced experience of books, bringing characters into three dimensions. Textbooks can benefit from AR as well. Videos and other additional information can be called up through an AR app, enhancing understanding of concepts. The three-dimensional nature of AR images makes exploring language, history and math concepts more engaging. (several examples of augmented reality books)

Shopping, Product Packaging and Augmented Reality

Companies are already using AR to make interactive product labels; download a free app, point your phone at the label and the story unfolds. Jack Daniels is one of the more prominent companies using AR for marketing. Their bottle label tells stories about the history of the whiskey, teaches the distilling process and can take you on a virtual tour of their facilities. It’s easy to imagine how this concept applies to at-home shopping. AR is the link between those glossy yet archaic paper catalogs that arrive in the mail and the world of online purchasing. Point your phone at the page and learn more about the product, see videos of how it works and access a link to the online store.

AR and Product Guides

Let’s say you’ve already used AR to purchase something new — a vacuum cleaner, a new laptop or a fancy blender. That old-school product guide that has to be printed in several different languages can now be a lot smaller. An AR app can translate for you and provide additional information and three-dimensional diagrams that you can rotate or take apart without the risk of breaking your new toy. Mercedes Benz was making use of AR manuals as early as 2018, making it more fun and interactive to get to know your new car.

Augmented reality and print can work together, giving us the best of both worlds — the feel of real paper you can touch with the engaging and customizable nature of the digital world; the same target audience as a glossy paper catalog with an interactive digital touch that leads directly to the company website. Print media is far from dead and with augmented reality enhancing it, it will continue to play a role in informing and entertaining us.

6 Reasons Augmented Reality is Worth the Investment

13 May 202213 May 2022

There is a lot of talk about virtual reality these days, with Facebook rebranding as Meta and their declared focus on creating the Metaverse — a completely digitally generated world in which users can work and play. But augmented reality — technology that projects digital enhancement onto our existing world — is being applied in a number of different industries as diverse as large machine manufacturing and shopping for makeup. AR has begun to take hold of the manufacturing and retail world with much more potential. Here are some reasons AR is the tech to watch.

Mobile AR had 600 million users worldwide in 2020

That number is on the rise. According to Statista, by 2023, 1.4 billion people across the globe will be using mobile augmented reality. That number is expected to continue to grow through 2024 and beyond, as more apps make use of smartphones’ existing ability to support AR technology.

The AR market will be worth over $97 billion by 2028

In 2020, the augmented reality market size was about $4.2 billion. It was over $6 billion by 2021 and is projected to keep growing. While AR took a small dip during the pandemic, it has rebounded nicely and continues to grow. (Fortune Business Insights)

Augmented Reality has applications in the industrial sector

AR’s overlay of digital information on a real-world environment helps technicians prevent mistakes and work more efficiently. Newport News Shipbuilding, a designer of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, uses AR to inspect newly built ships. The digital projections highlight construction structures, not part of the finished product, that must be removed. AR has reduced inspection time from 36 hours to just 90 minutes. (Harvard Business Review, 2019)

AR can make education more efficient

According to Michael Porter, some companies are already using augmented reality to reduce the training time for new employees to nearly zero. It also means they are able to hire people who are initially less skilled. Package delivery company DHL has found this especially advantageous with their seasonal hires during peak shipping times. (Harvard Business Review, 2019)

Augmented reality is already used in healthcare

With augmented reality, patients and care providers can draw and annotate on a 3-D screen during telehealth visits. When combined with machine learning algorithms, AR can help detect diseases such as cancer. Google’s 2020 announcement for an AR-based microscope for the Department of Defense is just such an example. Real-time camera images are processed with computer diagnostics to diagnose disease at an early stage. (mobidev.biz)

AR-enabled advertising is engaging customers

The L’Oreal YouCam makeup app was downloaded 3.5 million times in 2018. Many media planners today intend to incorporate more VR/AR experiences into their ads to improve the customer experience. (Assemblr) In fact, AR ad experiences are reportedly twice as engaging as their non-AR equivalents.

Why Smartphones are the Preferred AR Tool over Headsets

04 May 202204 May 2022

Recently, there’s been an industry push for innovation in augmented reality to create more user-friendly interactions. While AR entertainment applications like Pokémon Go have enjoyed great success, AR tools have yet to be developed that could solve some of the problems for which it is well-suited — making things like GPS walking directions, fixing an appliance or shopping safer and more efficient. What is holding AR back?

The Impracticality of AR Headsets

A hands-free option (like a wearable headset) seems like the best option. But unfortunately, after many years of research and development by a multitude of companies, AR headset technology is still complex and cost-prohibitive, keeping it impractical for widespread use. According to Ben Kuchera, everything from price to complicated cables to the way they can mess up your hair keeps the general population from warming to the VR/AR headset concept. AR headsets are still a long way away from being lightweight, cable-less and affordable. But, the AR technology is there.

Smartphones’ Prevalence Makes Them Perfect for AR.

Most adults already carry smartphones. A recent census notes that 84 percent of households have at least one smartphone. As a realistic avenue for disseminating augmented reality, companies have been focusing on beefing up the AR capabilities of their phones. The goal is a highly sophisticated AR experience delivered through a device we already own, making the technology ubiquitous and accessible around the world. AR applications can project walking directions, instructions for fixing a laptop or information on a new product right onto the object or image through the phone.

This is why Kaalo is focusing on AR solutions for iOS and Android devices and has become the preferred partner for several large Fortune 500 companies. Kaalo‘s team of industrial designers, mechanical engineers, UI/UX experts and software developers create augmented reality experiences that function seamlessly with millimeter accuracy — an experience that can be easily delivered to devices most people already own. Experience it first-hand here.

Why Kaalo is the Perfect Design Team for Augmented Reality

27 April 202221 February 2023

Industrial designers focus on all aspects of a product’s development: design, usability and function; an astute designer is always looking for ways to improve the consumer’s interaction with a product. Augmented reality, with its capability of interfacing with our real 3-D world, does just that — it eases our experience. Industrial designers are a natural fit for developing AR interactions that require a deep knowledge of the product as well as the ability to intuit what the user will need to see and hear.

How Digital Content is Changing

Thus far, we have mostly consumed digital content on 2-D screens. When faced with a “How-To,” we refer to instructions on a website, in an app or perhaps as a PDF manual. In those situations, we shift our attention back and forth between the directions and the product we are trying to learn about, set up or fix. Augmented reality exists in a 3-D environment; information is overlaid directly onto the product. Because industrial designers think and design in 3-D, they are a natural fit for creating seamless AR experiences.

Why Industrial Designers are a Natural Fit to Design AR Experiences

A designer’s entire process depends upon knowing how a user will interact with a product and what will make that experience easy and intuitive. Now, designers are out to make a wide range of products more intuitive with augmented reality. They’ll create apps that enable you to fix your own laptop, toaster or car with step-by-step instructions overlayed right onto your device. Creating AR experiences on a physical laptop requires a thorough understanding of the mechanics of the product — how the device opens, how cables and screws are disconnected, etc. A mistake could damage the device, so in creating the AR instructions, a designer’s grasp of the design is critical. When this extensive product knowledge is combined with creative augmented reality and software execution, the results are magical.

Kaalo’s Unique Team of AR Creators

Kaalo is a unique team comprised of industrial designers, mechanical engineers, UI/UX experts, and software developers — all co-creating augmented reality experiences that function seamlessly with millimeter accuracy. Take a look at Kaalo’s profile on DesignRush to see why Fortune 500 companies use Kaalo for AR solutions. Experience it first-hand here.

Seven Things You Didn’t Know About Augmented Reality

13 April 202213 April 2022

Augmented reality, while often bandied about in the same sentence as virtual reality, is a different (but related) technology. While VR creates an entire virtual world, AR augments what we can already see. AR adds digital information to our existing environment. You have likely experienced AR in your daily life without realizing it. Here are a few already common uses for AR technology and some surprising history and statistics.

AR Technology was Developed in 1968

Ivan Sutherland, “father of computer graphics,” created an AR head-mounted display system at Harvard in 1968. Early AR systems based on this first one were used to project geological information onto terrain for aviation, military and industrial use. The first advertising campaign to use AR came about in 2008 for the BMW Mini. (Harvard Business Review, 2016)

Football and Augmented Reality

On September 27, 1998, television football fans everywhere saw what seemed like magic: a yellow line. It appeared across the field at the first down marker, not covering the players but as if it were painted on the field itself. Only it moved, seamlessly, as the first down line did. A company called Sportsvision developed this augmented reality tech that debuted during a Ravens/Bengals game. At the time, it took six people in a 48-foot semi-truck parked outside the stadium to keep the yellow line up and running. (Vox, 2019)

Disney Has Embraced AR.

In 2001, Disney used augmented reality to show their characters interacting with real people in Times Square. That same year, National Geographic employed AR to make it seem as if extinct species were walking through a shopping mall. A couple of years later, Coca-Cola displayed ice melting in, again, a high-traffic shopping mall to bring awareness to climate change. (Harvard Business Review, 2016)

Pokémon Go Broke Download Records with AR.

In 2016, Pokémon Go became the most downloaded and highest-grossing app of all time. Following digital maps in the real world and capturing characters that randomly pop up obviously has an allure. For once, a video game — with the AR combination of real-world environs and digital overlay — has people going on walks instead of cooped up in their houses. (New York Times, 2016)

“I really got into this idea of using digital tech to reinvigorate the idea of a public square, to bring people off the couch and out into an environment they can enjoy. We’re biologically evolved to be present in our bodies and to be out in the world.”
– John Hanke, CEO Niantic Labs, Pokémon Go creator

Augmented Reality Can Make Right to Repair an Actual Reality.

Right to Repair refers to proposed legislation that would make it realistic for anyone to fix an electronic device. Right now, it is technically legal to fix your own phone or laptop, but as Thorin Klosowski in The New York Times Wirecutter points out, something being legal doesn’t necessarily mean it’s possible. Most of us would be intimidated by the idea of opening up a laptop to replace a battery, but AR can overlay digital information onto your device, giving you step-by-step instructions.

Your Brain Processes AR More Efficiently than 2-D Instructions.

Most of our information processing (up to 90%) is visual. How quickly and accurately we process that information depends on mental capacity, and the demand on that capacity is called “cognitive load.” Cognitive load is greater when there is a gap between where we receive information and where we apply it. Harvard Business Review (2019) Think of typical GPS directions in which you shift your attention between your phone and the road. All that shifting increases cognitive load and the likelihood you’ll make a mistake. Through an AR heads-up display, your directions are superimposed onto the road.

Both Apple and Microsoft are Developing AR Hardware.

In March of 2021, the U.S. Army announced an almost $22 billion deal with Microsoft for a specialized version of their Hololens along with software and services. Apple has plans to roll out an AR headset in 2023 and the sleeker AR glasses in 2024 or 2025. Both products pave the way for a proliferation of AR apps and a more seamless way to use them. Clearly, both Microsoft and Apple see augmented reality as playing a significant role in our future.

1 2 3 Next