What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality is becoming an increasingly common part of our lives, whether it’s via apps on our mobiles, in advertising, gaming, or even making visiting historic sites more immersive and interesting. But what is augmented reality?

Basically, augmented reality involves superimposing digitally created content onto real-world images so that the two blend together almost seamlessly. That might sound like a very modern technology, but versions of it have been used in films for years – if you’ve ever seen Mary Poppins or Bedknobs and Broomsticks, you’ll have seen the actors interacting with cartoon characters, but it was Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988 that really nailed the technique cinematically.

Fast forward to 2016, by which time both gaming and mobiles had become intrinsic parts of our lives, and the release of Pokémon GO really started to bring the potential of augmented reality to our attention. In this game developed for iOS and Android devices, players searched for Pokémon characters who would pop up in real-life locations. With an estimated 65 million users worldwide at one point, it was almost single-handedly responsible for the culture of teenagers (and others, but mainly teenagers) walking down streets paying more attention to what was on their phone than what was in front of them!

There are many examples of augmented reality already around us or that are heading our way – a few examples include:

Livening up Zoom meetings

As COVID-19 turned many of our relationships into ones that existed online only, it became possible to make them more interesting by allowing users to customise their faces and backgrounds. Unfortunately, some of the less technologically able among us weren’t always able to manage them successfully – who can forget the US lawyer who attended an important online meeting as a cat and couldn’t turn it off?

Making creative play for children more fun

Disney has created a children’s colouring app that turns a drawing of a character in a book into a 3D character on screen as the child colours it in. Don’t go running down to the shops just yet, though, because this technology is still being developed and isn’t yet available to the public.

Immersive visits to historic sites

Previously, a tourist would walk around a historic site and see only the ruins of the grand temples and other buildings that used to exist there, having to rely on their own imagination to visualise how it might have looked in its heyday. Augmented reality allows you to view the site through your device with superimposed images that show you how (scholars think) it would have looked at the time – including people going about their business!

As we do more and more of our shopping online, augmented reality is helping us to see how those things we used to only be able to judge using a picture are actually going to look in real life. These are some of the areas in which this is proving particularly helpful:

If you see a dress or a shirt that you like in a shop, you can try it on to see if it suits you. That’s not always been so easy online, but augmented reality will allow you to superimpose an image of an item of clothing on to your picture so that you can actually see how you look in it. It won’t tell you if a particular size fits, unfortunately, but you can't have everything!

Some people can see a paint colour and be sure that it’s in exactly the right palette to set off their curtains, cushions and carpet. For the rest of us, an augmented reality app, such as Dulux’s Visualiser, can use our phone’s camera to show us that particular colour on a wall in our living space – even taking into account any pictures or furniture that may on or against it. The same principle can place a piece of furniture you’re interested in into a space in a room so that you can see how it goes with your existing decor. 

We’ve already seen how augmented reality can turn an innocent lawyer into a confused cat – a more practical application of augmented reality on the face is an app that lets you see how different make-up will look. As testing is considered a vital part of the make-up buying process, this is a great way of enabling online shopping while also cutting costs for the manufacturer. L’Oréal have been blazing a trail in this field with their YouCam Makeup app.

Here at Morplan, we’ve been leading the way when it comes to innovations and improvements that help the retail and fashion industries for years, this includes our own AR tool, allowing you to see a product in your own space.