What Augmented Reality Means for Industrial Design
Augmented reality is finally here, in our pockets, and it’s going to transform the way we interact with the world. Mobile 6-DoF (six degrees of freedom) augmented reality SDKs such as ARKit, ARCore, Augment, Vuforia, 6D.ai, Wikitude…and the list goes on, have become powerful tools that we’re starting to see everyday. These tools present especially interesting opportunities to those who design the world around us: architects, artists, industrial designers, city planners and more. Mobile augmented reality means designers can bring their creations to life with devices that we have in our pockets — providing immediate and groundbreaking improvements on design time, cost, and efficiency by cutting out expensive devices and processes.
Let’s explore some of the possibilities.
The most basic advantage of using augmented reality during the design process is that the designer can view any 3D object in the environment where it will stay in real-time. This was made possible in the earliest versions of our favorite AR SDKs and allows us to move around objects as if we were there next to them, seeing how they interact with other objects and lighting. This realistic visualization may seem simple and obvious, but it allows designers to take a step back from the drawings or CAD interfaces, giving them a fresh look at designs in context. The ability to compare multiple designs to real life objects and other virtual objects will fundamentally change how we approach the design process.
Fortunately, we’re not done seeing enhancements in realistic virtual visualizations.
ARKit 2.0 introduced realistic reflections and environment textures allowing the real environment to reflect onto virtual objects. This effect adds an extra layer of realism and helps convince our mind that the object is anchored in real life. Fairly complex in execution but simple in concept — the phone is using the camera data to generate environment maps that can be used for reflections. This will provide great enhancements for designers or artists creating outdoor installations that will be seen in different lighting conditions.
6D.ai & Niantic (creators of Pokemon GO and Ingress), along with other companies, are working on adding occlusion to their AR technologies. Occlusion means that our device will understand when a real-life object (such as a box, a wall, or a person) is physically closer than a virtual object is, allowing the real-life object to be rendered on top of the virtual object. The increase in realism is obvious when you see it:
Watching a person walk in front of a virtual object only to see the virtual object rendered on top of the person takes us out of a convincing augmented reality experience. The addition of occlusion in AR SDKs will allow developers to further anchor virtual objects in real life. There are huge advantages here for designers, game developers, doctors and surgeons, and more as fully immersive experiences can be required to successfully complete an important procedure, or get accurate feedback on a potential product design from a random viewer on the street.
We’ve only scratched the surface…
Realistic visualization through augmented reality poses clear advantages for industrial design; we can push AR further and deliver more functional and productive experiences by introducing key factors from all design jobs: communication and collaboration. Multiplayer has enabled decades worth of amazing products and enhancements in gaming and B2B use cases, and ARKit’s Shared Experiences, and ARCore’s Cloud Anchors provide developers the ability to create multi-user augmented reality experiences. Now we can present a collection of 3D objects to a group of people around the globe as if we were all in the same room looking at the objects together. A user controlling this multi-user AR session can arrange objects in specific ways and be sure that all viewers see the same arrangement. This will drastically cut down on time consuming emails, or confusing texts or sketches that lack useful visual context.
This all sounds great, but designers aren’t always able to develop their own custom-tailored augmented reality experience to share with their collaborators and co-workers. This is where a tool like Augmented Review comes in. Augmented Review allows designers, artists, product executives, and more to view, comment on, and collaborate around products in augmented reality. The ability to precisely identify points on objects and talk about them in real-time, multi-user augmented reality sessions, or add comments on those points for later has made Augmented Review the #1 choice for design reviews in the mobile age.
These are the new opportunities at hand for industrial designers all the time. In the future, we’ll be able to create and manipulate our designs entirely in virtual or augmented reality. Combine this with the power of collaboration, and we’ll be able to work with a remote group and construct a product in real time. The transformation of our CAD tools from our 2D screens to 3D environments is just around the corner.
