A Brief History of Augmented Reality

We write a great deal about augmented reality here at Eye Tracking Update. It is linked with the many technologies we touch on, and every now and again it is important to provide some background for the technologies and trends that seem a ubiquitous, common way of life. Nowadays, augmented reality applications are embedded in mobile devices, cars, and video and computer gaming systems. We found a recent article that touches on the relatively recent history of the technology, tracing a line through the industry over the last 40 years, and thought it might be helpful to our readers still getting a sense of the technological changes taking place day by day.

Augmented Reality is essentially the combination of both real and virtual objects into a real environment. It links real and virtual objects with each other, typically in an overlay of sorts that runs interactively, in three dimensions, and in real time. It’s not limited to certain display technologies like a head mounted format, nor is it only limited to the sense of sight. Augmented reality applies to all senses – hearing, touch, smell, and so on. It seems only a matter of time before it is integrated widely into consumer products.

Occasionally, virtual objects overlay real objects. This technique is known as mediated or diminished reality, and also qualifies as augmented reality under industry definition.

Ivan Sutherland, a computer graphics pioneer working with students at Harvard and the University of Utah, created some of the first augmented reality prototypes. The article describes the efforts of a small group of researchers doing work at the US Air Force’s Armstrong Laboratory, NASA Ames Research Center, MIT, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, throughout the 1970s and 80s. But it wasn’t until the early 1990s when the term “augmented reality” was coined by Caudell and Mizell, two researchers at Boeing Corporation that were spending time developing experimental augmented reality systems to facilitate workers putting together wiring harnesses in planes. Global Positioning System (GPS) was a natural progression, incorporating navigational assistance features to the visually impaired and eventually computers became strong enough to support augmented reality and graphic in mobiledevices and the like.

A Survey of Augmented Reality Technologies, Applications and Limitations

Related articles:

1. Eye Tracking and Augmented Reality: An Interview With Metaio CEO
2. Eye Tracking: Augmented Reality Apps for the iPhone
3. A little touch of augmented reality
4. Augmented Reality and Pupil Tracking go Hand-in-Hand to Merge the Virtual and Real World
5. Eye Tracking and Augmented Reality: The Future of Advertising
6. Sony Aims for Augmented Reality Glasses
7. The Congruence of Eye Tracking and Augmented Reality
8. 6 augmented reality apps at your fingertips
9. The race for augmented reality glasses