Many people know that Facebook invested $2 billion last year in VR (virtual reality) company Oculus, but may not know that Google has invested $500 million in an AR (Augmented Reality) related company, Magic Leap. Although the company has no products to date, the patents they apply for are related to "how to achieve holographic projection in Iron Man."
What does AR look like?
AR, augmented reality, a technology that "seamlessly" integrates real-world information with virtual world information. When it comes to the AR head display, Google Glass and our imagined AR head show a lot of difference, but it is a representative of consumer AR. Although Microsoft's Hololens has not yet achieved the effect of its promotional video, in general, it has the features and form that AR has.
Entering the layout mode, the foreign giants will vote for AR
At the launch of Microsoft's Windows 10, half of the time introduced the Hololens AR head display. In fact, for a company like Microsoft that has deep knowledge of the operating system, Microsoft did not emphasize the AR head-mounted device too much, but the AR operating system behind it, or the holographic operating system. According to industry insiders, Microsoft has spent at least seven years on this.
In addition to the energy that Microsoft has spent so much, there are Other giants who are not idle. As mentioned at the outset, Google’s $500 million investment gave Magic Leap, an AR-related company that has no product offerings to date. Intel and Google's entry into AR - the IDF conference a while ago proved everything. Do you think Apple is comfortable now? Apple acquired a 171 augmented reality patented German startup Metaio at the beginning of the year; back in 2013, Apple acquired PrimeSense, a company that develops camera technology and devices that sense motion.
You are not mistaken, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Intel, the four big companies are not a slap in the face, to create concepts, but in the AR field sneaking the layout. Not only the giants, according to industry insiders, in addition to these three giants, Sony, Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo are also involved in this field. There are also some AR related companies in China, but not many. According to a person from a certain industry, there are roughly 10 AR companies in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Zhejiang and other places.
Here I want to vomit a sentence, how many companies in China dare to spend huge sums of money to lay out the future? I dare not make a big deal to the future, just think about the money in the circle, or fight in the "mobile phone assembly" market, but there are several mobile phone core technologies that are made in China? How many of our hardware are ours, screen, camera or CPU? Either burn money to fight O2O, how to become a great company?
Can AR be applied to those areas?
Looking back, how attractive is AR, so many companies have the next? According to data from an authoritative organization, the future market for AR will be four times that of VR, at the level of 100 billion. What is the basis? Some areas have shown strong demand for AR.
The first is the aviation field. For the pilots, the AR head display can make their operation more convenient and quick. Taking the F-35 as an example, its helmet mask is an AR head-mounted display called "the component of the mission system architecture." It's like a small, transparent movie screen that shows aircraft flight data, enemy target locations, and which weapons the pilot can use to attack targets. As the pilot turns his head, the display scene changes, creating a direct connection between the pilot and the aircraft's unprecedented computing power, just like the scenes in a science fiction movie. This widget is the key to making the F-35 the world's most sophisticated fighter.
The second is the industrial field, which makes it easier for workers to overhaul and maintain. For example, a person overhauls a pipe that has been sealed in a wall. According to the previous, he needs to look at the drawing, calculate the relative position of the inspection point, draw a line to find the position, and then overhaul; AR head display can project the pipe system to the wall immediately. Face, view the "pipe perspective picture" in real time. Power lines, heat pipes, chemical pipes, sewers... many places have this use. Of course, the use in the industrial field is not only this, such as welding and detection of circuit diagrams, and immediate push of alarm information (free hands).
There are still many fields, such as education, where a figurative, steerable virtual object is easier to understand than a mouth-to-face or flat-projection. For example, in the field of training, especially in the field of automotive training, there is already a strong demand.
These applications seem to be very good, is it just a few people's delusions? Although the current AR head display does not achieve the holographic projection of the full field of view we want, the current technology has no problem in achieving the functions required above. In addition, according to the AR industry, there are already many upstream manufacturers who have this demand and are looking for it.
What is the difficulty in implementing VR AR?
Taking last year as a node, China has set off a VR entrepreneurial fever, and 90 VR-related companies have been established. However, AR, which is considered to have "a bigger market," has received little attention in China.
Speaking of the reasons, there are roughly several aspects: 1. After Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion, both entrepreneurs and investors have more confidence in the VR industry; 2. With Facebook acquiring at least 5 VR-related companies, VR's ecological architecture is basically clear, Facebook's big tree provides more and more open source information, the technology to do a head-mounted display basically has evidence to follow, even the mold has ready-made . 3, AR is more difficult to achieve on the technical level, especially the optical dual-channel system constructed by the near-eye virtual scene and the real scene. It is said that the technology used by VR is one-fourth of AR, when the AR head-mounted display device is blocked. The reality scene is VR.
Good things and more grinding, AR this meal is not so easy to eat. The smart thing and the CEO of the SEER team who is the AR helmet, Wei Rongjie, have a deep dialogue. Their products were $160,000 on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter at the beginning of the year. I know that at least three problems are AR and VR is not.
First of all, in the AR head display, it is necessary to solve the problem of the optical two-channel system in which the virtual world and the real world are superimposed; whether it is VR or AR head display, it is necessary to realize the near-eye projection of the virtual world, that is, the head display must be worn in the eyes. Near, not as much as a few tens of centimeters away from the user like a PC or TV. Near-eye projection is very well realized in VR head display. The most widely used scheme is to use a single convex lens to enlarge and zoom out the display screen, but the AR head can not do this because the real world light is allowed to enter. This is very difficult. At present, two common methods are Google Glass's micro-projector plus refraction and SEER, which project the virtual world onto the transflective film. According to industry insiders, although Microsoft has not published the optical imaging principle of Hololens, it is inseparable. These two imaging principles.
Secondly, the real world light is captured and recognized as a specific object and a 3D model is established to give the virtual world a bearing foundation. According to industry sources, Microsoft's Hololens has used at least four cameras to capture real-world images.
Finally, there is more interaction between the real world and the virtual world in the AR head display, that is, how to virtualize an object in the real world and interact with the real world, such as creating a 3D model in the previous step, such as a virtual cup on the table, and using real The hand picks up the virtual cup.
The above three points are basically the basic technology of AR head display. From the promotional video given by Microsoft, Hololens basically did. But many people don't buy it – either don't believe it, or feel that VR head-ups can be done and are easier to implement.
It has been suggested that VR heads can also use the camera to capture the real world and superimpose it into the virtual world - this is the opposite of the idea that the AR head "adds the virtual world to the real world". Obviously, the AR of VR is easier to implement. In contrast, the AR header is not only difficult to implement, but also has a lot of tricky "small troubles" in the implementation process.
For example, the real world and the virtual world should be merged into an "augmented reality" world (AR world) in the human eye, that is, to ensure that the real world, the virtual world, and the human eye are on a line, preventing the virtual world of the AR head projection from being positioned relative to the eyes. The change has caused the virtual world to be misplaced with the real world – people who wear glasses know that glasses are easy to slip. (In most cases, the posture of the glasses is not for the sake of playing handsome)
For example, the human eye can focus on the distance, and the distant view is close to the scene. The virtual world should be synchronized with the real world. However, the virtual world of the AR head projection is basically fixed, and the virtual world is blurred when looking at the distant view.
As for the "small troubles" mentioned above, there are already some solutions. For example, the SEER helmet solution reduces the possibility of the virtual world being misplaced. The user can also adjust the imaging distance of the virtual image from the human eye, 300mm to 7000mm, as needed. But obviously, these programs are transitional and cannot solve the underlying problems. Perhaps tracking the movement of the human eye and the focal length can completely improve these "small troubles."
Looking back, the AR head seems to be too difficult to implement, and the way VR uses the camera to capture the real world and overlay it in the virtual world can be easily implemented, why not? However, AR practitioners are naturally more optimistic about the AR head display. "The real world captured by the camera has no texture and delay. The current scheme also has screen window effect, color shift, etc., and the restoration of the light field is extremely difficult."
to sum up
As mentioned above, the giant is investing in the AR field; in the fields of aviation, industry, training, and education, AR has already had good application scenarios; there are still many technical obstacles to AR implementation. However, this does not affect a group of people like Wei Rongjie to move closer to AR. The virtual world of the human eye and the perfect fusion of virtual objects and the real world are pursued by AR equipment developers. AR contact lenses are an ideal form of AR heads - this can be seen in many movies, but obviously It is impossible to achieve at this stage, only to retreat to the next, let the AR head image wear a pair of glasses - Microsoft Hololens basically did. Maybe when the AR fire is over, it is not called AR, but the scene we saw in Iron Man - holographic projection.
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