Augmented Reality , What for ?

5 Definition and motivation Increasing realism in today’s Virtual Reality (VR) applications often requires months of human work, spent with modeling objects with realistic apperance and behavior. It also requires the purchase of highend graphics workstations that are able to perform the computing in real-time. In many cases, however, a complete immersion of the user into a synthetic environment is not necessary and sometimes not even desirable. Augmented Reality (AR) is the term used to describe a supplementation of the real world as opposed to a complete substitution by VR. AR combines real and synthetic objects by super-imposing computer-generated annotations on the real environment. The computer augments the real worlds with additional information, which enhances the user’s perception. In a very broad sense, AR could thus be seen as the augmentation of natural feedback with simulated cues (which are not necessarily limited to visual cues). In AR, virtual objects can be used for displaying specific information that the user cannot perceive with his own senses. This kind of information could help the user to perform specific tasks. In order to find a consistent definition, Milgram established the so-called Reality/Virtuality (RV) Continuum (cf. Figure 1). On the lefthand side of the RV Continuum, the complete real world is located, and on the right-hand side, one finds a world consisting only of artificial objects. A mixture of real and virtual objects is called »Mixed Reality.« One distinguishes between »Augmented Reality« and »Augmented Virtuality,« depending on the amount of real or artificial objects. Augmented Reality, What for?