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So, I see this come on time and time again. People using AR and VR acronyms interchangeably. This can cause confusion for people not in the know so, in this post, I wish to explain the differences and what each is mainly used for and what I think the future looks like for both AR and VR.
Let us start with VR the one most people may have heard of. I think by now most of us have seen advertisements for the oculus quest 2 and all the video games one can play on it. Well, that is what VR is. VR Stands for Virtual Reality. This is where you will put on a headset and all the content you see through the lenses are all virtual. It transports you to a whole new world by completely replacing the environment you are in. Virtual Reality also can allow you to interact with this new environment with usually controllers. Sometimes reminiscent of the Wii Days. These controllers detect motion and position with various tracking methods. For example, the Oculus Quest 2 utilizes cameras on the front of the headset to track the position of the controllers. This is a good and accurate way of tracking but has its flaws. If the controllers go out of view of the cameras (for example someone put them behind their back) it can lose tracking.
This is where the tracking of a headset like the Valve Index comes into play. Now, these base stations require you to Mount them on a wall all and this it provides a better level of tracking. It utilises lasers to scan and build a 3D model of your room and can track the exact positioning of your headset and your controllers no matter where they are as opposed to the Oculus quest too you can move your controllers in any space whether it’s behind you in front of them on top of you beneath You and it will still find them the downside of this is that it can be relatively expensive and also so you need to mount them to a wall so therefore is not self-contained within the headset itself.
Now they are is something quite different AR stands for augmented reality and this is where you will put on a headset or utilise a device that was scanning the environment you are in and place objects or visions of certain things an application may need in the environment you are already in this differs from virtual reality where it will build a completely new environment. the most well-known utilisations of augmented reality is the mobile phone app Pokémon go this is where utilised the phone’s camera to scan your environment and place a Pokémon on whether it’s a table or the floor for you to catch. it is understandable why augmented reality and virtual reality is mixed up.
Augmented reality has a lot of uses in the business environment with items such as the Microsoft HoloLens are revolutionizing Healthcare planning and research and development. now these headsets will give you a full 360 Vision and track where you are in a room a little bit like virtual reality headsets most of these will use cameras on the front of the headset to do this and incorporate things like hand-tracking so instead of using a controller you can utilise your hands now this can come in good for something like the max of hollow lens wear if you have a keyboard in front of you you can move your fingers to type on the keys as opposed to typing them one by one with a controller how these can help revolutionize things like the research and development industry could visualise blueprints and Schematics.
The price of start with augmented reality is quite high But this is due to how Augmented Reality is Utilised, It is usually not readily available to the average consumer. With the Microsoft HoloLens 2 costing just over £2700 but these come with a lot of options for various sectors you could buy the normal hollow lens you can buy industrial versions which comes with different protection ratings you can buy development versions to develop your applications and so on. These devices are used within professional Environments and therefore need to relevant certifications and accolades as any other device would need
Now what do I think is the future for each I think for virtual reality Looking into people with disabilities it would help a lot giving them get away or assisting them with day-to-day life. now for the video game aspect multiplayer would be the way to go as having a large social space especially now with covid-19 being a limiting factor in our social interaction could help with people social skills.
Now for augmented reality, I would like to see it adopted in more places like Healthcare where it could help surgeons by visualising graphs or scans while in surgery to give them a better view on what is going on or you could help construction give them visualisations on infrastructure.
So There you have it the main differences between virtual reality VR and augmented reality. I hope I was able to Shan some more light on the possibilities and the differences between virtual reality and augmented reality and for more in-depth tutorials information and reviews please take a look at my other videos and posts
Thank you very Much for Reading!