Augmenting Our World

The basic idea of augmented reality is to superimpose graphics, audio and other sense enhancements over a real-world environment in real-time. Sounds pretty simple. Besides, haven't television networks been doing that with graphics for decades? Well, sure -- but all television networks do is display a static graphic that does not adjust with camera movement. Augmented reality is far more advanced than any technology you've seen in television broadcasts, although early versions of augmented reality are starting to appear in televised races and football games, such as Racef/x and the super-imposed first down line, both created by SporTVision. These systems display graphics for only one point of view. Next-generation augmented-reality systems will display graphics for each viewer's perspective.

Augmented reality is still in an early stage of research and development at various universities and high-tech companies. Eventually, possibly by the end of this decade, we will see the first mass-marketed augmented-reality system, which one researcher calls "the Walkman of the 21st century." What augmented reality attempts to do is not only superimpose graphics over a real environment in real-time, but also change those graphics to accommodate a user's head- and eye- movements, so that the graphics always fit the perspective. Here are the three components needed to make an augmented-reality system work:

• head-mounted display
• tracking system
• mobile computing power

Photo courtesy Columbia University Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Lab Early prototype of a mobile augmented-reality system

The goal of augmented-reality developers is to incorporate these three components into one unit, housed in a belt-worn device that wirelessly relays information to a display that resembles an ordinary pair of eyeglasses. Let's take a look at each of the components of this system.