My early experiments with Augmented Reality Technology
As I started exploring how I can use Augmented Reality (AR) technology to make this world more accessible, inclusive, and equitable, my mind started to wander imagining new possibilities. Prior to this moment, I had spent 19 years building enterprise software products in different market segments. During this time, I believed I’ve built products that accomplish three goals 1) improve enterprise’s productivity, 2) improve their efficiency in achieving their goals, and 3) make life a bit simpler for the people involved in running the enterprise. See my previous blog post on my journey thus far.
When I started my adventure exploring new paths outside of Nutanix (my last employer), I wondered how I can utilize my years of product-building expertise to build new products which will accomplish above stated goals but for consumers.
When I chose the Augmented Reality (AR) technology domain for further exploration, I started thinking about real-world use-cases to help me fulfill this quest. To be honest, I’m a newcomer in this domain and have just started learning about it. There have been pretty amazing advancements already, in both software and hardware. AR has found its applications primarily in social connectivity (SnapAR, SparkAR), gaming and entertainment (Pokemon Go), and retail (IKEA Place, Virtual Makeup)
AR continues to find its applications in other sectors, starting with Enterprises specifically in training & education (Microsoft Hololens, Magic Leap), advertising, and marketing.
In this article though, I’ll write about some of my explorations in Augmented Reality. I have got a feeling that I’m barely scratching the surface here. Nonetheless, it's a good start!
Following is a list of use-cases that I found interesting to pursue. By no means it is a complete list as I’m purposefully focusing on specific use-cases where I want to make a difference in.
Education — Immersive (and inclusive) Learning experiences
With so much educational content available on YouTube, Khan Academy, Coursera, Udemy, and so on, learners of all ages can find topics of their interest and start learning from where they are. There are no classroom/campus boundaries to stop anybody from learning what they want to learn.
What’s next? How about Virtual Science Labs?
As I was researching applications of immersive technology in the field of education, I stumbled upon a few experiences which aimed to teach science concepts more inclusively. Kids learn new concepts faster when they are allowed to imagine. Inspired by this notion, I spent some time creating a real model of Solar and Lunar eclipse using AR where one could “see” how Solar and Lunar eclipses happen by just using a smartphone.
This wasn’t just imagery rendered, they are scaled-down models of part of the solar system. For example, the sizes of celestial objects and Distances between them, their relative positioning and rotation, and revolution frequencies were modeled using factual data. The result was a more accurate rendering of timings when Lunar and Solar eclipses take place.
The simple app provided an opportunity to “pause” the celestial motion of the objects and inspect the state of all objects when the eclipse happens. Isn’t that a wonderful way to learn the amazing natural phenomenon?
What other science concepts can be taught this way?
It’s pretty much impossible to set up science laboratories in every classroom in all corners of the world. But if we could set up virtual laboratories where students can carry out experiments with virtual objects which have properties of real-world physical objects, they will learn from these experiments.
Home Decor / Furnishings
AR should enable visualizing pretty much everything we buy to decorate our homes — wall hangings, paintings, picture frames, curtains etc
For example, what if you can get a feel for how picture frames, paintings, photo frames will look like on the walls and help you make better design choices.
Here is a quick prototype app “ARtwork” of placing Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting on the wall.
Home Improvements (Interior design) — Try before you buy
This particular segment has been using AR for quite some time. IKEA Place app made big waves in AR community with its intuitive use of AR technology to visualize furniture items from their catalog into people’s homes. Beautifully crafted user experience — I love this app.
3D models (e.g. from TurboSquid, CGTrader, Sketchfab, XFrog) are becoming so realistic that the results of placing them virtually in your house are flawless fooling our visual senses, making us believe they are real. Wow! This is going to be the way people will shop in near future.
What else is possible? Pretty much most stuff we buy online can be “tried” out before we buy using AR. It’s a very low-cost option, and retailers will love this aspect.
So many resources (money, effort, time) are wasted in workflows for “returning the merchandise that was bought online”. They can avoid this waste if consumers can exactly see what they are getting.
Landscaping (Exterior design)— Redefining the spaces around us
Most recently I had renovated my backyard. I got it finished with beautiful Quarystone pavers from Calstone replacing some portion of the old lawn/concrete patio. Although it was a very small project, the entire process was long/cumbersome enough, and I found a few challenges throughout. In this article, I won’t go into all the details but I promise I’ll write about it in a coming article.
But for now, just imagine, taking out your smartphone or an iPad, walking around in the backyard, designing how you want to layout your pavers, and with a few taps, you have it there, in front of you, the rendering of the patio as you were dreaming. and added bonus of if I can look up highly-rated contractors who can get this job done.
Here is an example of how my prototype app used Augmented Reality and pavers textures (Many thanks to nice folks at Calstone for providing high-quality textures!) to visualize extension to the existing paved patio.
Can you spot the difference between real and virtual pavers?
Some friends told me they are indistinguishable. I think this is a very powerful illusion. If my simple prototype can blur the boundary between what’s real and what’s not, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the future where powerful immersive experiences are delivered seamlessly. That’s a very exciting future!
Conclusion
Based on what I’ve learned so far, I have a firm conclusion that AR is a very promising technology. Virtual world superimposed on real-world can be really convincing delivering never before seen experiences. I believe AR will find its applications in every possible industry.
The current state of AR is definitely encouraging and thanks to the folks at Apple, Google, Snap, Meta (formerly Facebook), Microsoft, Magic Leap, and many more, the technology is evolving rapidly. I can’t wait to see collective progress made by the platforms, the tools, and the ecosystem.
I’m very much interested to continue down this path and see what else we can build with AR.
I truly appreciate you taking the time to read this far. I believe immersive technology will touch more aspects of our lives than we think. The future is going to be awesome, and I’m going to try contributing to it meaningfully.
Please don’t hesitate to leave your comments, thoughts, and questions. I would love to have a conversation with industry experts, trailblazers, trend observers, and futurists. I’m just getting started in this domain, and I want to learn as much as I can.
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