Augmented Reality

B. Historical Development The idea to such a technology was already born in the 1960s, when first head-mounted displays (HMD) were built by the visionary Ivan Sutherland [1]. The original application of such displays was tele-presence – the display would show imagery, captured by remote servo-controlled IR cameras, which were moved according to the user’s head motion. This allowed the user to change his viewing direction very naturally and provided an immersive feeling, In 1966, the live camera images were replaced by computer-synthesized images – and the technology of “Virtual Reality” (VR) was born. During the following decades, a lot of technical development was done in this area of VR, which provided means of complete immersion in a virtual environment, generated by increasingly powerful computers with more and more advanced graphics capabilities. Implementations of such immersive VR technology could be found in simulation (aircraft and cars), training, design and prototyping, and entertainment (for examples 3D shows in Las Vegas). Applications which were mixing the real world perception with information in the sense of Augmented Reality, were mostly implemented in military applications, where helmet mounted displays provided overlay graphics for target selection and night vision. For use in other domains, these applications were too cumbersome, requiring heavy head-worn displays and precise tracking systems.