In the age of AR and VR
Written by: Pratyush
We are blessed to live in an age where “The Matrix” is constantly becoming less like a fiction and more like reality. Interactive displays, animate holograms, and virtual 3D models are no longer limited to science-fiction Hollywood movies, rather becoming a tangible reality.
In context of this, Virtual Reality (VR) is creating a safe environment for design teams to observe their projects, thus allowing them to correct or improve their designs before finally starting to work on the final physical product. High end graphics, fast refresh rates, and realistic sound and movement immensely increases VR’s ability to depict the fine-grained details of an engineering product, thereby maintaining illusion.
Contrary to VR, which entirely replaces the real world with a virtual one, Augmented Reality (AR) appears in direct view with the real world and adds sounds, videos, or graphics to it. AR simply changes the perception of reality. If you have used social media or played video games, you have probably had an AR experience. Mobile applications such as Pokémon Go and Snapchat have brought AR into regular everyday use. Next-gen product designs are going to be reliant on the concept of data-driven designs. And AR is a big part of acquiring this data for insights. One possibility is for AR-enabled products with embedded sensors to gather intelligence on how product users interact with them under a range of real-world conditions. For instance, Boeing, the world’s leading commercial aircraft maker, uses AR to alleviate its sophisticated methods of wiring it’s 787–8 plane (AKA Dreamliner). It has saved the company about 25% of wiring time and lowered the error rates to nearly zero.
Moreover, a new term which might not be well defined to most people is Mixed Reality (MR), having a clear distinction between the two mentioned above. Also referred to as Hybrid Reality, it involves the merging of real-world content with an overlay of synthetic content. There is more to MR than using your HoloLens from Microsoft for recreation. Upcoming MR tools allow more flexibility to engineers during design process. They can interact with 3D objects in the form of holograms captured or generated from a separate environment in their physical space. Such technology is creating a bridge between the digital world and the physical one.
What if you could shop for that new shirt and try it on without leaving the confines of your home? Or take a tour of the apartment in Dubai you want to rent this summer without leaving your country. You have probably encountered a few of these scenarios in your life, one way or another. Now imagine being able to do all these things without having to visit any of those places. AR, VR, and MR can make this a reality!
