Difference between Augmented Vs Virtual Reality
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are evolving more and more appropriately nowadays. Both technologies keep so much in standard while also existing very different. So, in this article, we will try to describe the difference between AR and VR.
AR and VR are technologies best defined as immersive 3-D experiences employing advanced devices. Despite using the same technology and hardware, both are quite diverse in terms of experiences and use points.
The difference between VR and AR reaches down to virtual and real-world environments. AR utilizes a real-world setting while VR is an entirely virtual world. VR often requires a headset appliance, but AR can be accessed even with a smartphone. AR can even incorporate virtual and real-world, while VR is just limited to a fictional fact.
What is Augmented Reality (AR)?
Augmented Reality (AR) is a digitally improved version of reality where users can interact with computer interfaces similar to a smartphone or an app. It incorporates both the real and virtual elements to give a real-time interactive experience between both worlds.
Suppose a computer UI screen appears in front of your eyes, working the same way as your smartphone. This kind of relation between the real and virtual world is the importance of AR. The most famous instances would be the Snapchat AR filters and Pokémon GO.
What is Virtual Reality (VR)?
Virtual Reality is a computer-generated background that people can share through sensory stimulation, i.e., visual and auditory, making the surroundings immersive and real. In VR, you can experience a dream world or travel the world from the convenience of your home.
VR technology needs a lot of elements to function. For example, you’ll require a VR Headset, controllers to interact with the environment, and a device that can take the processing power required to run VR applications.
Virtual Reality comes from the importance of “virtual” and “reality.” In layman’s terms, it involves experiencing things that only exist in a computer simulation. Also, you could call it an illusion if you liked.
When virtual reality and augmented reality were first introduced?
While primitive virtual reality techniques got their beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, the ideas of VR and AR started to achieve momentum in military applications during the early 1980s. Motion graphics such as Tron, The Matrix, and Minority Report all offered futuristic riffs on how these technologies would evolve in the years to arrive.
The first mainstream attempt at emitting a VR headset was the Sega VR in 1993, an add-on to the Sega Genesis gaming system. While it never pushed it to market, it did stoke customer appeal in the technology. It would not be until the Oculus Rift in 2010 that a VR headset would be victorious with a customer audience — though today these machines remain costly and largely of niche interest, gaming-focused users.
Augmented reality splintered from the virtual reality around 1990, and was carried to the public’s attention in 1998 when TV broadcasters started overlaying a yellow line on the football field to sufficiently show the distance to a first down. Over the next era, several apps around AR technology were designed for both military use (such as in fighter jet cockpits) and user, when print magazines and packaged goods started embedding QR codes that could be scanned with a customer cell phone, making the product “come alive” with a short 3D video.
In 2014, Google moved out of Google Glass, to provide everyone with a head-mounted display AR device. The AR headset, which was controlled through voice and touch gestures, was met with skepticism and criticism, attributed to the new reality that people were recording video 24/7 in public. Privacy unexpectedly became a major talking point in customer AR. Google ultimately suspended the project and relaunched it a few years later with business users in mind.
AR uses computer vision, mapping as well as depth tracking to present appropriate content to the user. This functionality allows cameras to gather, send, and process information to show digital content appropriate to what any user is looking at.
In Augmented reality, the user’s physical environment is increased with contextually relevant digital content in real-time. You can experience (AR) augmented reality with a smartphone or with certain hardware.
The focus of virtual reality is on affecting the vision. The user requires to put a VR headset screen in front of his/her eyes. Therefore, stopping any relations with the real world. In VR, two lenses are fixed between the screens. The user requires to adjust eyes based on the individual action of the eye and its positioning. The graphical illustrations on the screen can be rendered by using an HDMI cable connected to a PC or mobile phone.
Uses speakers, goggles, and sometimes handheld wearables to simulate a real-world experience. In virtual reality, you can also engage visual, haptic (touch) stimulation, and auditory, so the constructed reality is immersive.
The distinction between Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)
Here are the most important distinctions between Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR):
• The method augments the real-world scene
• In AR Users consistently have a sense of existence in the real world
• AR is 25% virtual and 75% real
• This technology partly engages the user in the action
• AR needs upwards of 100 Mbps bandwidth
• No AR headset is required.
• With AR, end-users are even in touch with the real world while interacting with virtual objects nearer to them.
• It is used to enhance both virtual and real worlds.
• The fully immersive virtual environment
• In VR, visual senses are under the command of the system
• VR is 75% virtual and 25% real
• This technology completely immerses the user into the action
• VR needs at least a 50 Mbps connection
• Some VR headset device is required.
• By using VR technology, the VR user is disconnected from the real world and immerses himself in a completely fictional world.
• It is used to improve fictional reality for the gaming world.
Advantages of Augmented Reality (AR)
Here are the pros/benefits of Augmented Reality:
• Presents individualized learning
• Fostering the learning method
• A vast variety of areas
• Offers creation and continuous advancement
• Augmented reality can be used to improve user knowledge and data.
• People can share experiences over long distances.
• Helps developers to create games that offer a “real” experience to the user.
Advantages of Virtual Reality (VR)
Here are the pros/benefits of Virtual Reality:
• Make an interactive environment
• Improve work capabilities
• One of the most important benefits of VR is that it helps you to make a realistic world so that the user can explore the world.
• Virtual reality in the teaching field makes education easy and comfortable
• Virtual reality authorizes users to test with an artificial environment.
Disadvantages of Augmented Reality
Here are the cons/drawbacks of Augmented Reality:
• It is costly to execute and develop AR technology-based projects and to keep them.
• The absence of privacy is a major drawback of AR.
• The low-performance level of AR devices is a major drawback that can occur during the testing stage.
• Augmented reality can generate mental health problems.
• Lack of protection may affect the overall augmented reality principle.
• Extreme engagement with AR technology can guide major healthcare problems such as eye issues and obesity etc.
Disadvantages of Virtual Reality
Here are the cons/drawbacks of Virtual Reality:
• VR is evolving much more familiar, but programmers will never be able to interact with virtual environments.
• Escapism is unremarkable among those that use VR environments, and people begin living in the virtual world instead of dealing with real-world problems.
• Training with a virtual reality environment never has the same outcome as training and working in the real world. This means if somebody has done well with simulated tasks in a VR environment, there is still no guarantee that a person doing well in the real world.
Applications of Augmented Reality (AR)
Here are the major applications of AR technology:
• AR apps are being created that embed text, images, videos, etc.
• The printing and advertisement industries are using AR technology apps to display digital content on top of real-world magazines.
• AR technology authorizes you the evolution of translation apps that allows you to interpret the text in other languages for you.
• With the help of the Unity 3d Engine tool, AR is being used to create real-time 3D Games.
Applications of Virtual Reality (VR)
Here are the major applications of VR:
• VR technology is used to create and improve a fictional reality for the gaming world.
• VR can use by the military for flight simulations, battlefield simulations, etc.
• VR is employed as a digital training machine in many sports to help to calculate a sports person’s performance and examine their techniques.
• It is also becoming a primary way of treating post-traumatic stress.
• Using VR devices such as Google Cardboard, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, users can be transported into real-world and imaginary environments like squawking penguin colonies or even the back of a dragon.
• VR technology offers a safe environment for patients to come into contact with things they fear.
• Medical students use VR to practice techniques
• Virtual patients are utilized to help students to acquire skills that can later be applied in the real world.
How do AR and VR work together?
It will be incorrect to express that Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are intended to work separately. They mostly agreed to develop an enhanced engaging experience when these technologies are merged to transport the user to the fictional world by giving a new measurement of the interaction between the real and virtual world.
