Augmented Reality: A technology that brings the virtual and real together

Imagine you are reading a story on the Gateway of India and when you point your smartphone at it a virtual 3D model of the famed monument appears out in thin air You can move it around in any direction see a top view side view or perhaps even take a closer look at the engravings on top of the monument It also offers you links to documents explaining its history pictures and videos of events that might have taken place around the monument as well as photos of sunsetu00a0and sunrise PGLrsquos Snap2Life uses Image Recognition IR to create an Augmented Reality AR ldquoThatrsquos Augmented Reality AR for you a technology that brings the virtual and real together by enhancing the real worldrdquo says Shreeram Iyer chairman and group CEO Prisma Global Limited a Mumbaibased company which has been offering AR and Image Recognition IR based services in the country IR is the technology used to recognise images to enhance the real world AR is slowly catching up in India from branding and promotion to virtual shopping and experiencing an enhanced version of the real world AR is being used in a multitude of applications An ARbased experience zone at the recently concluded Property Expo 2013 in Mumbai PGL recently developed an app called Snap2Life which uses IR technology to recognise any kind of graphic and text for example a news print story or ad and eventually link it to associated content website pictures videos or a multimedia presentation on the Web So in simple words any information text or graphic that you see out there can be immediately discovered in the virtual world almost in the blink of an eye ldquoItrsquos a very basic application of what IR and AR can do togetherrdquo he says The WOW 25 app created by Blink for KFC could recognise Indian currency and offer products that could be purchased within that amount A new virtual experience Just a few months ago visitors at a property expo in the city were in for a surprise when they spotted themselves on a big screen walking through Gateway of India interacting with a virtual dabbawallah participating in dahi handi taking blessings from the Indian elephant god Ganesha and evading speeding cars coming towards them in a virtual Bollywood film shoot This experience zone created by Transhuman Collective a company that works on designing ARbased experiences was just a glimpse of what this technology can offeru00a0Blink another IT company that offers ARbased branding solutions developed a special app for the American joint KFC wherein one could see its new offers within a price range say Rs 100 by pointing the camera to it A virtual menu would show the user the different items it could buy within that amount with a link to place order Beyond brands According to Soham Sarcar founder of Transhuman Collective ldquoA lot of Indian companies are realising the importance of offering a unique experience to its customers using AR And while most services in India are till now limited only to branding and promotion and creating ARbased experience zones thatrsquos not the end of it The possibilities with AR are immense It can be used inside classrooms wherein students could access all the multimedia content related to a subject by snapping a picture in healthcare and for skill training Gaming is already offering plenty of ARbased consoles like the XBOX Kinectrdquo he says Sarcarrsquos company is also working on creating a product wherein users could try new clothes without even having to actually put them on Iyer adds ldquoWhat AR offers is magnificent Imagine yourself walking through a 3D model of a house through the hall the bedroom kitchen every nook and corner before buying out your dream home Thatrsquos the future of real estate advertisingrdquou00a0 The challenges But to make AR and IRbased services a possibility one of the key requirements is good quality Image Recognition software believes Iyer as it forms the basis to create Augmented Reality In fact his company is creating a visual and text database for its visual search app Snap2Search which it claims ldquocould do exactly what Google does but here instead of typing words you are required to click a picturerdquo The second biggest challenge for ARbased services to be successful on mobile phones says Sarcar is the Internet connectivity ldquoSo far 2G data connection still rules in India Once that changes the services would improve toordquo he adds