[LINK] The future of augmented reality

jim birch planetjim at gmail.com
Tue May 8 14:40:02 AEST 2012


David Boxall wrote:

> Into the Matrix: the future of augmented reality (and you)


I hate to quibble :) but whatever they are augmenting, it isn't reality.
Reality is still out there doing what it does, how it does it, just like
before, substantially invisibly to us.

Contrary to our intuition, what we consciously "see" is already very much a
manufactured representation, augmented by a variety of internal systems to
make it useful.  For example:

Colours:  There are no colours out there, just a cacophony of different
wavelengths of light, not one of which is which is coloured red, green,
blue or white.  A brain system compares three sensory channels with
different frequency curves and produces colour sensations that are added to
the visual model.  The colour system is smart enough to include the ambient
light to produce "colour invariance" where the same object appears to have
the same colour under wildly different illumination conditions with very
different reflected light frequency curves.

Lines and edges: visual systems enhance lines and edges, including adding
them sometimes when they aren't actually visible.

Projected positioning: we "see" moving and rotating objects ahead of their
actual position.  This illusion helps us to incorporate our reaction times
when interacting with them, eg, catching a ball.

Imagined objects: partially visible objects are seen even when only tiny
fractions of their surface are actually visible.  A tiger behind a screen
of leaves can seen based eg on a foot and a piece of tail.  Sometimes the
tiger isn't actually there but it's an evolutionarily adaptive bet.

3D vision: scenes look 3d on a flat screen.

Brain systems that recognise specific objects add their responses to the
visual field even when it is weirdly inappropriate, for example, seeing a
face in a cloud, or, a "Jesus" on a piece of toast.

Visual effects associated with our own motion are removed or adjusted.
Many optical illusions use these motion correction to make objects appear
wrong sized.  We also don't notice when our visual field changes as our
eyes dart around or we blink, the visual field input is momentarily
switched off to avoid confusion.  Clever filmmakers are actually able to
synchonise cuts with our blinks (or indeed synchronise our blinks with
their cuts) so we miss POV changes in a film.

We "see" emotions in faces, not just muscle and skin shapes.

Similar, things in occur in other senses, for example, people make actually
sounds with their vocal apparatus but we hear words/meanings.  In
proprioception, our body positioning sensations incorporate adjustments for
our movement and momentum.  Some cartoons incorporate these sensory
illusions back into imagery providing a surreal effect.


"Augmented reality" is really "augmented representation", or the use of
external, non-bioligical representational aids.

Cheers
Jim



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