If there was anything I found most exciting about technology it was how it could make our lives easier with such minimal effort.
Whether
it be the outbreak of skype that brought people closer,or online
shopping - a boon for people who hate going through multiple shops and
yet not finding the right thing,or even online movie bookings (I hate
standing in queues).
The most innovative technologies are either
those easy to use,easy to develop,or both.They say now a days there's an
app for everything,and how true is that!
Recently I tried exploring one such technology called
'Augmented Reality'.
Since
the first time I read about it I was awestruck and really wanted to
make something that was so amazing,but I held back thinking it would
take a lot of time and time was the last thing I had.
So when I
had to choose a topic for seminar I plunged at the opportunity,what's
better than exploring what I've always wanted to & get graded for it
as well.Win-Win!
So what is augmented reality anyways? To put it
in simple words,it is the merging of the real world with the virtual
world. So unlike virtual reality which is cut-off from the real world
mostly,Augmented reality takes as input your surrounding and overlays(or
augments) virtual objects over it.
Here's an example:
AR(Augmented Reality) retains the 'reality', in this
case the coffee cup and overlays the virtual object (The colored
circular objects) to create a composite view.
It has a dozen of applications ranging from advertising,fashion to education and medicine.
You might have noticed AR in Pokemon-Go as well.
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| Isn't Growlithe just adorable! |
For my seminar I choose to explore applications of Augmented Reality in Education.
Education
, firstly because I think our education system needs a revolution in
way things are taught,and secondly because AR is easy to develop and
cost-efficient to deploy.So you don't need expensive projectors or some
hi-tech device to be able to use,all you need is a smart phone.
I
believe embedding technology in our education system can do
wonders,specially the ones like AR can go a long way in improving the
quality of our system.
For starters I tried to model carbon and
hydrogen atoms ,because it's difficult to illustrate them accurately in
2D.Atoms don't really have orbits like planets that are one the same
level,orbits in atoms are haphazard and it's difficult to predict the
motion of electrons,so to represent atoms like this:
is misleading and not accurate.
Electrons
are present in energy levels and these energy levels can be represented
as circles but it is difficult to represent that on a 2D paper,and this
is where AR could be helpful.
Below are snaps from my implementation:
 |
| Carbon Atom |
 |
| Water Molecule |
This is
just a part of what I plan to implement.
AR can
also work for text recognition as well,so imagine you're reading for exams and
you're stuck at a topic,you get your smart phone and point camera towards the
text and voila! pops a video of your professor explaining the topic you're
stuck on.Wouldn't that make studying easy and fun.That's the power of Augmented
Reality.
It is
super easy to develop, the tools I used were :
1.Vuforia-Unity
2.3D Max
for 3D models (You can use other 3D modelling softwares as well,just check for
compatibility)
Have a
look at these tutorials:
- http://www.instructables.com/id/Augmented-Reality-Tutorial-PizzaSalad-Android/
- http://www.instructables.com/id/Augmented-Reality-Tutorial-No-1-Marker-Based-Primi/
It's easy
to develop and fun to use.So do give it a try and let me know how it goes in
the comments.
Resources:
Link to
my seminar presentation:
http://www.slideshare.net/arshiyasayd/marker-based-augmented-reality
