Chapter 1 WHAT IS AUGMENTED REALITY Some friends stand together in a park Their fingers swipe quickly across smartphone screens One snaps a photo They laugh and point at their phones The group is playing Pokémon Go In the game players toss pretend balls at cartoon Pokémon characters to catch them Smartphones have become an important part of everyday life There are lots of amazing ways to use this technology
This person plays Pokémon Go in a grocery store The phone's camera shows the real store aisle The game added the character and ball Pokémon Go uses a phone's camera to show a person's real life surroundings such as parks roads and buildings The game adds cartoon animals and balls to the real life scene on the phone's screen This is an example of augmented reality AR Reality is everything in the real world Augment means to add something
It is not always easy to see when a player gets a first down in a football game That's why TV broadcasts add a yellow first down line Hidden in Plain Sight Before Pokémon Go many people had never heard of AR But it has been part of TV sports for a long time In football games on TV a yellow first down line appears on the field There isn't really a line on the field A computer program adds the line to make it easier for fans to follow the game
In televised NASCAR races boxes pop up over the cars The boxes contain facts about the cars and drivers A computer program keeps the boxes over the right cars even though the cars are moving quickly around the track With AR the information added by the computer changes as things in the real world change NASCAR races include many cars It can be tricky to keep track of who is winning But AR helps
