According to Wikipedia, Augmented Reality (AR) is “a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery”.
In 1992, Tom Caudell coins the phrase Augmented Reality while at Boeing helping workers assemble cables into aircraft. Since then, AR was used mainly in simulation technologies, movie production and experimental /educational projects. In 1999, Hirokazu created ARToolKit, a software library for building Augmented Reality (AR) applications.
It wasn’t until 2009 that the AR technology hit mainstream web, thanks to Sqoosha, the Japanese developer who ported ARtoolkit to Adobe Flash (FLARToolkit), thus bringing augmented reality to the web browser.
Interactive AR is currently widely used in promoting and advertising products and brands. While there have been numerous applications for the technology, basic usage principles are the same where live video feed from a camera is enhanced with digital multimedia elements. AR is also hitting full speed in mobile applications ranging from location based advertising to gaming and even dating.
We, at Eastline Marketing have been busy adding AR to our solutions arsenal because we truly believe that in some applications the marketing impact of such a solution can be ground breaking.
To demonstrate the usage of AR, we’ve put together a test console with a few examples. All you need to experience the demo is a printer and a webcam.
