Augmented Reality

Introduction to Augmented Reality…

Smart glasses, special mirrors, interactive magazines, windscreens that guide you through traffic, paintings that come to life. It is called augmented reality and it is a technology that exploits the displays of mobile devices, wearable devices, vehicle windows and interactive shop windows to add information to what we see.

The application horizons are almost infinite: from automotive to manufacturing to smart packaging to operations.

Augmented reality exploits elements already present in the environment and uses interaction with the surroundings to gain deeper and more specific knowledge of certain elements.

Augmented reality thus makes it possible to enhance and improve – through human-technology interaction – a series of actions that are regularly performed every day. It must be emphasised that augmented reality provides an enrichment of perceptions through digital processing, i.e. software, which enables information that cannot otherwise be obtained if only the classical five senses are used.

The two different types of technologies will also be explored in this course:

The first, the one that is becoming increasingly successful, i.e. is also being channelled towards the general public, communication and marketing, is the one that is experienced through mobile devices. Smartphones and tablets equipped with a camera, GPS, compass and accelerometer can be used to display a range of data and information about the area being viewed through the camera lens. In this way, an overlay is created between the physical elements present in the environment and the digital ones proposed by the device.

Pepsi Max Spot 2014

Another type of augmented reality is that which is used through computer processing. In this case, augmented reality consists of specific software capable of recognising black-and-white drawings that are processed using specific markers to create images, films and other multimedia content.