Augmented Reality in the field

Applying AR is quite different from applying VR. AR applications are more focused on integration scenarios with the real world. Some are as follows:

• Gaming: With the release of the Pokémon GO game by Niantic, the demand for AR games has picked up drastically in the market. A lot of companies are coming up with AR games and launching them.
• Architecture/construction/archaeology: AR can be used to visualize completed buildings for in-progress or upcoming building construction. Digital architecture/building images can be overlaid over the real view of the property or ground.
• E-Commerce: Businesses can’t reach each customer with demo-able physical product, and opening showrooms is every city is a costly business, especially for start-ups and newcomers in the market. So, reaching out to customers through AR, online furniture retail companies, for example, allows users to consume AR through smartphones, let them visualize their furniture products, and enable them to design their house interiors.
• Education: Traditional education systems require hands-on instructions and real/prototype equipment to explain it better to students. With AR, teachers and students can visualize the same equipment in virtual mode, with very similar training instructions as with an actual device. Another implementation of AR in the education system is distance learning, where students and a teacher very far away, can use VR devices for interactions and virtual classrooms.
• Medical: In the medical field, there are different imaging techniques for various requirements, such as X-ray, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but there is no consolidated view for medical practitioners. AR could be used for these scenarios, where the output from different imaging techniques could be overlaid over the patient and give a consolidated view to medical practitioners.
• Industrial design: AR is being used for designing, sharing ideas, and brainstorming design views among different designers and architects and supplies quick feedback and brainstorming cycles. Earlier, the same process used to take a long time, as designers used to create physical prototypes and then discuss them.
• Travel/navigation/tourism: AR is also used for developing navigational applications; for example, travel-related digital information is overlaid on the vehicle windscreen, which helps the driver in real-time navigation without looking at any other device, such as a GPS or smartphone. AR is also used to develop travel-related applications, which help the user with location-specific information of the place where the user is currently placed, such as historical information about tourist places, or information about nearby restaurants and cuisines.