5 months back
I got down at WTC station in New York and was searching for Standard and Poors office building. I had a google map printout in my hand with directions. But having got out from the metro and taken a shortcut (following others), I was outside the station clueless. As per the map I should have taken the proper exit and be somewhere else.
I also had a satellite photograph of all the streets and how the buildings look like when viewed from the top, but I was at ground level and view from top did not matter
1 week back
I was equipped with my google phone Mytouch with Layar app installed. All I did was aim the phone camera at the street with the app being launched and it gave me a map superimposed on the camera screen. This is augmented reality at its very basic.
The mapping of data to image is done by using the phone's GPS data to pinpoint the location, coupled with its on-board accelerometer and compass to figure out the phone's orientation and the direction in which it's pointing. In the future, the mapping can be made more precise and personal by factoring in the user's identity.
Augmented reality is a coalescing of technologies that promises to create a new interactive relationship between mobile users and their surroundings. It's easy to make augmented reality sound like the latest technology in search of an application, but an analogy with jet fighter pilots might help.
Pilots look through the cockpit window, or a helmet faceplate. The inside of these surfaces is treated to display transparent images of cockpit controls and navigation data, a technique called "head-up display." Data, images and text overlay a view of the real world.
Smartphones now can apply that basic concept using very different technologies and take it to another level: adding data about the phone's location and orientation to relate the data overlays to the actual objects you can see onscreen through the phone's camera: buildings, streets and monuments.
Read more real life examples on the following link
How is it useful to us?
It is amazing how much such kind of technology could help us. Consider counter insurgency operations. In any cordon and search operation based on accurate information with very less time on hand to mobilize additional support the positioning of the few soldiers makes the difference between whether or not the militant gets away. If I could create an additional layar based on my earlier study as to where the place the troops, not a single militant would get away through the cordon.
Consider recce - hitting the 8 figure grid reference is really difficult when the area is new. And if my bridge head depends on an 8 figure grid reference every second counts.
In one of our operations we had called attack helicopters to fire upon gwadis where militants were harboured. Being broad daylight and us being downhill with no protection it was difficult to approach the gwadis. What if we could share what we were observing with the ones in the helicopters. No collateral damage and helicopters attack would be accurate.
Imagination alone is the limit to what such augmented reality can do.
In the url there are many examples which apply to us and I did not want to repeat. Do read them and share what other applications can you think of.
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