Back to reality
This stuff looks very cool and promising, but is impossible at some points due to simple physics. However we can get pretty close to this level of immersion. The ingredients needed to be able to make non-interactive AR are:
Well, let's take a look about what we can do already.
A (realistic) virtual environment - Check
- A virtual environment
- A device able to display both the real and virtual world
- An absolute positioning system which is super accurate
- A depth measurement system to handle visual occlusions
Well, let's take a look about what we can do already.
A (realistic) virtual environment - Check
That's the easy part. Three dimensional games have reached a stage of realism any person is able to immerse into. The screenshot below is shown on the E3 in 2013, it is of Tom Clancy's game The Division. Of course an augmented menu display is a lovely feature I expect to see being developed within the next 10 years.
A device able to display both realities - Sort of check
Kickstarter is a crowd funding website providing a platform for some very interesting technological innovations. One of the best funded projects is the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality head mounted display providing a 3D immersive gaming experience.
When we would attach two camera's on it we should be able to merge the realities!
A super accurate absolute positioning system - Problem?
Handling orientation is done by the Oculus Rift with three 1000Hz Gyroscopes, and this seems to work perfectly. However positional tracking is proven to be quite a challenge. The inertial measurement unit (IMU) of the Oculus Rift could be used, but will result in a drift. Drift is killing for the merging because the virtual world will drift away relative to the real world.
Thus when you limit the amount of drift, you should be fine! (Wish me luck this is what my master thesis will be about.)
Thus when you limit the amount of drift, you should be fine! (Wish me luck this is what my master thesis will be about.)
A depth measure system - Check
Using maths it is possible to create a depth map from stereo camera images. This is great because we can simply check which object is closer and occlude virtual objects behind a real object.
Are you ready?
Microsoft's future vision and Tom Clancy's ideas are great. The technology is ready, but are people ready for this technology? That is the real question.