[SIGGRAPH 2011] Day 2 – augmented reality means…

VANCOUVER, CANADA: Augmented reality, if you break it down, means this... Your everyday experience is improved by the inclusion of data. Driving a car, for example, is augmented by the information on your dashboard. The speedometer tells you how fast you are going. The fuel gauge gives you an idea of how far you can go. GPS can guide you there.

There are two distinct groups at SIGGRAPH this year. There are the technical innovators, who are developing computer products, and the brilliant operators, who are using them. I’ll describe a few developments I saw yesterday, capable of transforming the way we interact with data.

• ‘Tracking’
  
  You are the subject, willing or unwilling, in a world gone digital. Your every transaction online and in store can and is being tracked. Now, in an effort to augment your reality, clever marketers will track you physically in space and time. Where you are is as important as what you are doing there.
  
  
• ‘Modeling’
  
  Building a digital ‘you’ means that your shape and size, direction and speed must be converted into a digital model, or avatar. Now your image can be maneuvered in digital space and time.
  
  
• ‘Compositing’
  
  Your avatar now becomes a type of media. We clothe you in product. Cars, fashion, holiday destinations. The possibilities are limitless in the digital world.
  
  
• ‘Presentation’
  
  In the retail environment, the interface is specific to the retailer’s product. Can you imagine trying on clothes without removing yours first? Does an advert really need to feature someone else?
  
  It’s the real you. Unreal

To read more on the emerging technologies presentations at SIGGRAPH 2011, go to www.siggraph.org/s2011/for_attendees/emerging-technologies and Twitter (#siggraph #etech).