AR Technology - People and Commerce

Augmented Reality (AR) technology is a great tool that blends real world experiences with enhancing digital features. AR systems have been used for decades and with easier access to cameras on devices, basic AR projects have seen exposure on a scale not seen before. While virtual reality (VR) is immersion of a complete digital environment, AR is mixture that overlays features and sometimes allows interactions. They can be used to improve safety in construction, play awesome games and just relay information that makes life that much easier. While I love the concept and immersion of VR, AR is another realm of interaction that I find to be of great utility.

As with most technologies, the data being created and processed and used within useful applications is what derives value to people. Apple have always had an impressive vision for AR, their glasses are still talked about and they’ve been slightly ahead of the Android market in delivering better AR tools for developers. The ARKit 2 was used in many instances since its debut in 2018, I remember trying out AR+ for the first time in Pokémon GO for the first time. After a couple of years the state of AR has improved significantly and developers are seeking further opportunity to deliver utility in AR applications. One thing that seemed like a distant possibility is AR shopping. I don’t mean shopping to dress up your digital monster.

Photorealism and 3D modelling within AR is opening up a new gateway to help shoppers make informed decisions when buying products online. I’ve had multiple disappointments when shopping online when viewing static images of items, it’s very hard to get an accurate gauge on sizing and smaller details. Using Quick Look from Apple is a great way to do this, allowing superimposing of models using embedded USDZ files. It’s a format from Apple and Pixar and has been used for a couple of years now. Quick Look now allows users to view products in 3D and links to merchants for direct purchase, a great way to connect customers and businesses. More importantly, it’s a seamless experience all in one place. I feel this may be precursor to what other platforms may try to do in the future, especially those with their own currencies.

With 3D readily coming to phones, I’m seeing great potential in the 3D AR world. Huawei’s Live Maker and other variants made me very interested in animation of static objects, it shows that users can easily scan and transfer these models to different environments for viewing. Suddenly we can go a step beyond selling through words and pictures, embedding even more data in media to allow users to interact in the way that AR allows them to do so. I think 3D scanning and AR media will begin to show up into web and mobile social applications in the near future, just as Apple have done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality
https://developer.apple.com/augmented-reality/quick-look/
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/13/apple-expands-quick-look-to-let-retailers-sell-things-directly-in-augmented-reality/