Pack your Bags! Get Ready! The world is going Digital - A look into the concepts of VR, AR and MR

Greetings to the ever lovely Steemians!

Today, I return with a fabulous banger! Don't tell that I said that.

But, actually, it is a banger - what I saw on youtube two days ago where an illusion (or what else could I call it) of a whale diving out and in with a big splash of water from the floor of a basketball court in the most realistic possible way and also, a gentleman (one might argue this) shooting down some alien right in the corners of his office.

Maybe you should see it too. I was amazed, you might be as well.

_{[Credit: Magic Leap - All in one Video - Published by salenak 7 on YouTube - May 12, 2017]}

The scenery and the fabulous experience displayed in the video really amazed me and compelled me to make more research about the concepts displayed.

It was during research that I got to know that the stuff I saw is a contribution to the growing technology of Mixed Reality which Magic Leap and Microsoft are big guns in and is receiving tremendous investments from different bodies as it is seen to be the next big thing that will happen to human as it will enhance human experience as regards many fields like adventure, gaming, medicine, tourism and many more.

This brings me to be writing today about the Reality technologies which is divided into three wonderful headings - The Virtual reality, The Augmented Reality, and the Mixed Reality.

Are we ready for some mood smoothening experience ourselves?

To start with, the idea of creating a real experience didn't just start recently as we may think. Many people from the past have contributed greatly to the field in an attempt to make people feel the "real" scenario or the expected happenings in a particular place or a historical event. The first attempt at it being the Panoramic paintings also called the 360-degree murals from the 19th century.

^{Wikimedia Creative Commons : Paronamic view of the Battle of Borodino (1812).}

The painting was intended to create a realistic view of what really happened at the historic Battle of Borodino to anyone seeing it. The painting was made as real as possible to create a sense of belonging and existing in the moment of the event. Stereoscopic photos & viewers, Link Trainer (known as the First Flight Simulator) and some science fiction predicting the invention of virtual reality came up before the widely popular Sensonama was introduced by Morton Heilig in 1950.

The Sensorama was a cinematographical work intended to immerse the viewer into the film by viewing it through the arcade styled theatre cabinet. The Sensorama is made up of parts that include a stereoscopic 3D display, stereo speakers, smell generators and so on that would help simulate all senses of an experience of the "real scenes" of the films.

By 1960, Morton Heilig invented the Telesphere Mask known as the first VR Head Mounted Display. It provided a 3D stereoscopic display along with great stereo sound for non-interactive film medium with no motion tracking. Since then, we have been bombarded with series of Reality enhancing devices and mediums and in recent years, investors have been pumping money into it as a sign of potential and impending impacts in the world of today and beyond.

As I earlier stated, the Reality experience is divided into, Virtual Reality - popularly known as VR; Augmented Reality, known as AR and the recently improving technology of Mixed Reality, MR. To make things easily understood and related, I'll like to tell us what each type of Reality means, how they are experienced and their real-life applications.

Virtual Reality, the earliest of the three, can be explained as a user's experience of an unreal, simulated and totally artificial environment purported as a real and interactive environment - enhanced by a mixture of interactive devices - software and hardware alike, that makes the user accept and see it as a real environment.

In it, users get to feel, hear and touch digitally represented materials and equipment.

The VR experience is usually made possible by immersing the user in the world through some set of connected devices from a computer or other programmed device to the user.

Common of these devices is the Special VR headset that is usually worn by the user so as to immerse them in the virtual world of super amazing exploration.

The VR Headsets are usually of two types; The PC-connected headsets and the Standalone Headsets. The PC connected headsets, as the name implies are usually connected to a computer system or any other device like a gaming console along with other controllers to enhance the virtual experience. The Standalone Headsets on the other hand usually detached from a PC and uses the screen of a smartphone to experience the virtual world. Samsung Gear and Google Daydream are common examples of devices that work in a similar manner as the standalone VR headset.

The soon to be released Facebook's Oculus Go is also one of the standalone VR devices that would need no PC connection nor smartphone for users to experience the virtual world.

As we might have noted, VR would best fit in the Gaming industry as it is characterised by many virtual environments and players can easily connect their VR Headsets to the game console and have unlimited fun. But more than fun and gaming, VR could prove useful and life-enhancing in many other fields.

Real Estate is one of the areas where VR technology plays a vital role in. As we all know, people are more enticed when they see a demonstrative view of what they are about to spend their cash on.

Normally, Real Estate agents use pictures to showcase to their clients, properties to be sold but with VR, the clients can be overwhelmed when taken through a deep and immersive tour of the properties in a digitalized 3D form. This will definitely increase their chances of a sale and would really give agents who adopt such technology a big advantage over others.

Matterport, a 3D Media firm employs VR technology to help agents showcase a real view of how properties would be and enable the potential clients to take a walk through the house without being physically present at the house's original location.

The wonderful concept of VR Technology is greatly appreciated in enhancing a virtual travel experience. The technology makes it possible for you to travel to wherever you wish to be on the globe right at the comfort of your home.

Through immersive and interactive means made possible by the VR Technology, travelling to any part of the world without "actually travelling" could be achieved. Imagine visiting Paris right in the comfort of your home or appearing in the great Rome or in front of the great wall of China within few minutes or hours! wouldn't that be awesome?


The Microsoft Hololens is a great example of implementation of this feature of VR. It could take you back in time to the era of dinosaurs or what have you. It is just sick and stunning how you could be anywhere you want!

Education by practice or visualization remains the best way to get students to learn faster. With the introduction of VR, institutions can adopt this technology to immerse their students in a relatable and real-life exposure of students to what they are being taught.

It will really enhance their learning and train them to be better at executing what they learnt.

This concept is already adopted by Unimersiv which is offering 3D educational content to help institutions and businesses train their student and staffs better.


The VR Technology has also found usefulness in the Health Care industry as it acts as a tutor to future Surgeons as well as helping the established ones to visualize the human anatomy in a simulated way. This helps in familiarizing them with every part of the body and would aid surgery execution on a long run.

More than Surgical training, Doctors can easily recognize their patient's needs and reaction to some particular environment and many more when the conditions are simulated in the virtual world and visualized. By this means, they tend to improve the health and well-being of the patient more easily than before.

Medical Realities already has a platform built to train surgeons on human anatomy through 360-Degrees videos and Virtual reality techniques. This will really go a long in helping save lives and building better health personnel.

The Augmented Reality, a more real technique basically involves super-imposition of a user's real-world view with a digital perception without the user leaving the real environment. Unlike, VR, AR doesn't take the user to an entirely artificial world but rather augments (or add to the real world an effect of a digital world in some part of the actual world.

The emergence of a whale from the Basketball court as shown up there is a vivid example of how Augmented Reality works. The spectators didn't leave the court but saw an illusion of a whale appear even with a big splash of water. It involves overlay of virtual objects on the existing real world. This technology expands our physical world experience by adding digital information unto it.

AR can also be experienced through two different ways; either through Portable devices like smartphones screen or through Smart Glasses or AR Headsets.

AR is an easily accessible technology where you can run augmented applications on your phone and use your phone camera to capture the real world and then superimpose virtual objects on it. An example is Pokemon Go which is a virtual smart game that enables AR experience.

With the use of Smart glasses or VR Headset, digital information can be projected right in front of your eyes. The gentleman (many will still protest) that was shooting down some aliens up there was immersed in an augmented environment where he could interact with virtual objects right in the corners of his office.

AR, unlike the purely virtual nature of the VR Technology, is a powerful tool for its ability to maintain the real environment while bringing in the virtual experience. Its application spans many fields because of its interaction with the real world.

In Advertising products, AR would be well preferred over VR as clients can see the way the products would look when brought into the physical space. Imagine wanting a new set of furniture, AR makes it possible to augment different types of furniture right into that part of your sitting room and gives you a real view of how it will be in the room.

^{Wikimedia Creative Commons : AR Advertising}

You can even augment how some set of cars would look in your garage without buying them yet! Isn't that awesome?

In Manufacturing industries where series of work are involved, AR would go a long way to helping operators work faster.

For instance, if an operator is to assemble a machine, instead of momentarily checking the manual book to read directions, AR technology could be employed to project the set of instructions right in front of him as he works on it.

Also, quality and productivity are greatly enhanced through employing AR as an assistant during manufacturing. Standards are ensured while speed and accuracy are equally injected.

It is no surprise that giant bodies like General Electric and Boeing have already adopted the AR technology in their system of operation and to this effect, Upskill is already offering a platform to manufacturing industries to help them utilize AR technology in their operations.

Navigation is another field where AR is well prominent. Users can easily use their smartphone camera in combination with the GPS to capture a particular place and overlay it with texts and signs displaying calculated route information.

AR could be used to augment a digital view right in front of the driver's dashboard easily giving directions and showing different routes, the distance, speed required, prominent places along the routes and so on, to enhance the experience during that particular journey. It is the best fit for AR technology as it guides users in moving from point A to B in the easiest and realistic possible way.

Retailers also enjoy the powerful intervention of the AR Technology as it allows them to represent their products such as shoes, clothes and so on in a projected 3D manner in form of synthetic light to a physical surface. These are called hologram and can be interacted with.

With this, shoppers, especially online shoppers, can easily visualize what they are about to purchase in a semi-physical form, at least to avoid the hoax of "unrhyming delivery" usually witnessed when ordering items online (the ladies can testify to this).

Mixed Reality also known as hybrid reality is an improvement on the AR technology. Here, virtual objects are as well overlaid into the real world but unlike in VR, this virtual object can interact with the real world.

You dig? Nah?

Ok, let's put in clearer words. MR is just like AR where you still remain in your original physical world/environment and digital objects are introduced into it. This time, however, the technology ensures that this digital presence allows awareness of the real world.

Imagine shooting down virtual aliens in your room (while playing a virtual game, of course) and you had to move around, MR ensures that any physical obstacle is sensed and you can easily avoid tripping over it.

It is the recent reality technology that is increasingly making waves and attracting investments from different angles. The Microsoft Hololens Skype experience is an example of how MR makes co-existence of a physical and digital object in real time. In experiencing this, holographic and immersive objects are used to achieve this.

It would be needless to not expect its application to cut across many fields for its standout features. MR finds use across countless areas of the industries and takes human civilization a step closer to reality.

^{Flickr Creative Commons : Holo lens}

As noted earlier, Communication is greatly enhanced by the concept of Mixed Reality. Business meetings, conferences and workshops would be easily conducted from virtual locations in a more realistic way through MR. The communicators can both see what's happening at the other end in a real-time view and communication becomes very easily achieved.

During Maintenance and repairs, experts presence can be facilitated through mixed reality technology and they can easily give direction and diagnostics from a virtual location. The waiting period and cost of bringing experts around would be saved through the use of MR technology. Economical, right?

Business personnel also find MR very useful in making their work easily executed. MR can help in data organization, Virtual staff training and creating business plans. Secretaries can open different tabs of documents on virtual screens displaying right in front of their eyes and they can easily relate to them simultaneously and hence increase productivity and efficiency.

Crazy right? I still feel so too!

On a recap, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality are technology gaining worldwide presence as each day passes. Investors, as well as researchers, are putting in their resources every now and then to make sure these technologies come to stay.

So, in simple terms, VR, AR and MR can be distinguished as below:

• Virtual Reality is an experience of a totally artificial environment
• Augmented Reality basically involves superimposition of digital objects on the physical world
• Mixed reality, a hybrid technology enhances co-existence of interactive digital objects and physical objects.

I hope you learned something new. Because I'm still awe-inspired by this faboulous technology, I'll allow you to enjoy another clip from Magic Leap. Check it out:

_{[Credit: Microsoft HoloLens mind blowing AR - Published by James Mackie on YouTube - Jul 21, 2016]}

REFERENCES

• Reality Technologies | VR, AR and MR
• Rubygarage | VR vs AR vs MR: Differences and Real-Life Applications
• Lifewire | Applications of Augmented Reality
  
• VRS | History of Virtual Reality
• Thinkmobile | AR

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