AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY

This report will present the following:

1. Definition of Augmented and Virtual Reality
2. Examples of Augmented and Virtual Reality
3. Benefits of Augmented and Virtual Reality
4. The difference between Augmented and Virtual Reality
5. The next AR and VR

Augmented reality and virtual reality (commonly abbreviated as AR and VR respectively) are reality
technologies that either enhance or replace a real-life environment with a simulated one.

DEFINITIONS

AUGMENTED REALITY

 Augmented reality (AR) augments your surroundings by adding digital elements to a live view,
often by using the camera on a smartphone. A virtual environment is designed to coexist with the
real environment, with the goal of being informative and providing additional data about the real
world, which a user can access without having to do a search. For example, industrial AR apps
could offer instant troubleshooting information when a handset is aimed at a piece of failing
equipment.

VIRTUAL REALITY

 Virtual reality (VR) is a completely immersive experience that replaces a real-life environment
with a simulated one. Virtual reality encompasses a complete environmental simulation that
replaces the user’s world with an entirely virtual world. Because these virtual environments are
entirely fabricated, they are often designed to be larger than life. For example, VR could let a user
box with a cartoon version of Mike Tyson in a virtual boxing ring.

EXAMPLES

AUGMENTED REALITY EXAMPLES

Augmented reality entails abundant — and growing — use cases. Here are some actual
applications you can engage with today.

 Ikea Place is a mobile app that allows you to envision Ikea furniture in your own home, by
overlaying a 3D representation of the piece atop a live video stream of your room.
 YouCam Makeup lets users virtually try on real-life cosmetics via a living selfie.
  Repair technicians can don a headset that walks them through the steps of fixing or maintaining
a broken piece of equipment, diagramming exactly where each part goes and the order in which
to do things.
 Various sports are relying on augmented reality to provide real-time statistics and improve
physical training for athletes.

VIRTUAL REALITY EXAMPLES

Beyond gaming and other entertainment cases, some business examples of virtual reality include:

 Architects are using VR to design homes — and let clients “walk through” before the foundation
has ever been laid.
 Automobiles and other vehicles are increasingly being designed in VR.
 Firefighters, soldiers and other workers in hazardous environments are using VR to train without
putting themselves at risk.

BENEFITS OF AR AND VR
1. In Business
- The main advantage of VR and AR would be that it creates such value through personalized
content and new business models. As more and more E-commerce/retail companies are
integrating VR & AR technologies into the User experience, the concept of 'try-before-you-buy'
vastly expands.
2. In Education
- In higher education, AR/VR can help learners grasp abstract concepts and gain hands-on
experience in low-risk virtual settings. This can enhance STEM courses, medical simulations, arts
and humanities materials, and technical education.
3. In work
- For instance, with AR and VR help, you can form avatars of employees and put them in the
virtual world where employees find themselves in the 3D production line and practice learning in
real-time. Moreover, AR/VR technology in employee training helps employees to practice their
skills effectively.
4. In Healthcare
- Virtual and augmented reality in medical field is becoming more widespread and common in
daily healthcare practice. Their use allows the doctors to provide more effective, less invasive,
and overall better care to their patients while for the medical students, it offers more hands-on
experience during learning.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY

While both technologies involve simulated reality, AR and VR rely on different underlying
components and generally serve different audiences.
In virtual reality, the user almost always wears an eye-covering headset and headphones to
completely replace the real world with the virtual one. The idea of VR is to eliminate the real world as
much as possible and insulate the user from it. Once inside, the VR universe can be coded to provide just
about anything, ranging from a light saber battle with Darth Vader to a realistic (yet wholly invented)
recreation of earth. While VR has some business applications in product design, training, architecture and
retail, today the majority of VR applications are built around entertainment, especially gaming.
Augmented reality, on the other hand, integrates the simulated world with the real one. In most
applications the user relies on a smartphone or tablet screen to accomplish this, aiming the phone’s
camera at a point of interest, and generating a live-streaming video of that scene on the screen. The screen
is then overlaid with helpful information, which includes implementations such as repair instructions,
navigation information or diagnostic data. However, AR can also be used in entertainment applications.
The mobile game Pokemon Go, in which players attempt to capture virtual creatures while moving
around in the real world, is a classic example.

WHAT’S THE NEXT AR AND VR?

AR and VR have a decidedly bright future, and the years to come will bring many new
capabilities and more widespread usage. Improvements in video quality, processing power, mobile
bandwidth, and AR/VR hardware will drive more mainstream acceptance, and falling development costs
and complexity will provide more options for creators to explore. Systems that track eye movement and
facial expressions will slowly make clunky joysticks and other controllers obsolete.

While video gaming and entertainment will continue to drive this market, AR and VR will also
see emerging practical applications. In the world of virtual reality, these include fully virtual surgery, in
which surgeons perform their jobs only in a simulated environment and robotic systems do the actual
work. In the world of AR, the ability to virtually travel anywhere is made possible by an emerging tech
platform called Mirrorworld, which aims to replicate the physical universe on a 1:1 scale. Education will
likely continue to shift to a virtual model on AR and VR platforms both in academia and in the corporate
world. And finally, retailers will continue to rely on AR applications to upgrade virtual shopping
applications, slowly rendering the need for physical storefronts obsolete.