5 ms·

I actually think industrial applications might be the hidden killer app for augmented reality. Imagine walking around a power plant and seeing your environment

by api 13y ago

I actually think industrial applications might be the hidden killer app for augmented reality. Imagine walking around a power plant and seeing your environment annotated: last inspection time for each inspection point, what is flowing through each pipe and its current pressure, etc. Construction sites could be truly amazing.

robg 13y ago
Call it a professional environment and I think that's where we will see the first true impact of wearable computing. Your examples are two good ones. And of course people have mentioned hospitals. Just consider every profession where a desk jockey is not the norm. That's police, firemen, first responders, military, teachers, etc. Heck, why not cashiers and even bar tenders? Then again, I'm biased. We're building and selling our own version of wearable computing, but driven by your biological rhythms.
- robg 13y ago
  Also consider that in professional environs, various pros get away with all sorts of silly attire and add-ons - from scrubs and stethoscopes to other uniforms and utility belts. You look ridiculous, but you have a job to do.
  - KeliNorth 13y ago
    Exactly, pros do it all the time. Eventually it becomes cool. I never buy into the hype about it looking bad for a few reasons: I wear glasses. Years ago people thought all glasses looked silly. And they were, with giant thick lenses. Now people buy non-RX glasses to look cool, even. I saw an animated sci-fi show from around 10 years ago (Denno Coil, Japanese anime) where in order to see the AR/VR world, you wore glasses. Every single kid wore glasses. You had to in order to see the VR/AR. Once something is common, the look factor doesn't matter. I think we're just seeing people being disappointed that Reality is still decades/centuries/possibly impossible behind Fiction, and Fiction is only pulling further away as Reality gets better computers to render Fiction with.
    - rafcavallaro 13y ago
      Yup - all the cool kids are wearing stethoscopes!
      - BrainInAJar 13y ago
        And steel toed boots. And hard hats are the latest rage
- psbp 13y ago
  I think it even has potential for a desk job. Having your workflow preserved as what you actually see instead of what you happen to save would be a huge time saver for forgetful people like me. Especially for artists, designers, and maybe even engineers. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to see what I was doing when I started to screw something up.
  - robg 13y ago
    Definitely utility there, but I assume there's always room for bigger and conformable screens, gestural UIs, etc. When you're walking around all the time, not having to hold something is a pretty huge selling point.
guelo 13y ago
Glass is not an augmented reality device.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- bensonperry 13y ago
  This was my experience when I tried Glass - despite knowing it wasn't AR, I still expected it to somehow enhance my experience. This isn't the case - it's merely replacing the screen in your pocket with a screen above-and-to-the-left-of-vision. I'm hoping the Glass team (or someone else) will take notice and create an AR device that can grant this experience that seems to be widely desired.
- maffydub 13y ago
  Why not? (I'm playing with it as an augmented reality device and have written a calibration library to get the display aligned with the camera - see https://github.com/matt-williams/Optometrist https://github.com/matt-williams/Optometrist. I've been working on hooking this into OpenCV which I'm hoping to upload in the next few days.) One valid answer to "why not" might be power/heat - if you run it for a long period of time, your battery dies and your hair sets on fire. ;)
  - driverdan 13y ago
    For one, the positioning of the display and camera. The display is elevated so you don't see it directly in front of you. You have to actively look at it. The camera isn't centered in your face so it doesn't line up with your vision.
    - maffydub 13y ago
      I agree the display is only part of your vision. That's suboptimal but I'm not sure it's a showstopper. The camera not being centered on your face is not insurmountable. (In fact, you'd want it to be centered on your right eye, not your face.) The project I linked to above aligns the camera with your vision. It doesn't currently work for different depths of field, but I'm working on that - this relies on your image recognition being able to determine the depth of the recognized object, e.g. by knowing its physical size.
samstave 13y ago
Medical, construction, engineering all provide a great opportunity for glass.
hnriot 13y ago
yes, going the way of the Segway, this is exactly how people rationalized their use too.
semiprivate 13y ago
While those are novel applications and would probably work well in a repair situation, those things would be better managed by software that alerted you when things like "inspection time had been exceeded" or if "pressures were out of range". Having to look at every pipe and piece manually to check it's stats is error prone at best. "You mean we have all this stuff recorded and in a database, but I have to go look at it to get the info?"
- snom380 13y ago
  You're confusing the use case. If course you can already look up the data and get alerts, and every modern plant already does. But getting hands on data when you're at the plant isn't just helpful for repairs or inspections, it's helpful for lots of things including debugging problems, helping new employees learn about the plant and "map" the processes to the physical layout of the pipes. Nowadays people lug around papers or tablets, so this would just be an extension of that.
Wingman4l7 13y ago
Aren't there already HUDs in limited / experimental use in such applications?

by api 13y ago

robg 13y ago

Call it a professional environment and I think that's where we will see the first true impact of wearable computing. Your examples are two good ones. And of course people have mentioned hospitals. Just consider every profession where a desk jockey is not the norm. That's police, firemen, first responders, military, teachers, etc. Heck, why not cashiers and even bar tenders? Then again, I'm biased. We're building and selling our own version of wearable computing, but driven by your biological rhythms.

robg 13y ago
Also consider that in professional environs, various pros get away with all sorts of silly attire and add-ons - from scrubs and stethoscopes to other uniforms and utility belts. You look ridiculous, but you have a job to do.
- KeliNorth 13y ago
  Exactly, pros do it all the time. Eventually it becomes cool. I never buy into the hype about it looking bad for a few reasons: I wear glasses. Years ago people thought all glasses looked silly. And they were, with giant thick lenses. Now people buy non-RX glasses to look cool, even. I saw an animated sci-fi show from around 10 years ago (Denno Coil, Japanese anime) where in order to see the AR/VR world, you wore glasses. Every single kid wore glasses. You had to in order to see the VR/AR. Once something is common, the look factor doesn't matter. I think we're just seeing people being disappointed that Reality is still decades/centuries/possibly impossible behind Fiction, and Fiction is only pulling further away as Reality gets better computers to render Fiction with.
  - rafcavallaro 13y ago
    Yup - all the cool kids are wearing stethoscopes!
    - BrainInAJar 13y ago
      And steel toed boots. And hard hats are the latest rage
psbp 13y ago
I think it even has potential for a desk job. Having your workflow preserved as what you actually see instead of what you happen to save would be a huge time saver for forgetful people like me. Especially for artists, designers, and maybe even engineers. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to see what I was doing when I started to screw something up.
- robg 13y ago
  Definitely utility there, but I assume there's always room for bigger and conformable screens, gestural UIs, etc. When you're walking around all the time, not having to hold something is a pretty huge selling point.

guelo 13y ago

Glass is not an augmented reality device.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
bensonperry 13y ago
This was my experience when I tried Glass - despite knowing it wasn't AR, I still expected it to somehow enhance my experience. This isn't the case - it's merely replacing the screen in your pocket with a screen above-and-to-the-left-of-vision. I'm hoping the Glass team (or someone else) will take notice and create an AR device that can grant this experience that seems to be widely desired.
maffydub 13y ago
Why not? (I'm playing with it as an augmented reality device and have written a calibration library to get the display aligned with the camera - see https://github.com/matt-williams/Optometrist https://github.com/matt-williams/Optometrist. I've been working on hooking this into OpenCV which I'm hoping to upload in the next few days.) One valid answer to "why not" might be power/heat - if you run it for a long period of time, your battery dies and your hair sets on fire. ;)
- driverdan 13y ago
  For one, the positioning of the display and camera. The display is elevated so you don't see it directly in front of you. You have to actively look at it. The camera isn't centered in your face so it doesn't line up with your vision.
  - maffydub 13y ago
    I agree the display is only part of your vision. That's suboptimal but I'm not sure it's a showstopper. The camera not being centered on your face is not insurmountable. (In fact, you'd want it to be centered on your right eye, not your face.) The project I linked to above aligns the camera with your vision. It doesn't currently work for different depths of field, but I'm working on that - this relies on your image recognition being able to determine the depth of the recognized object, e.g. by knowing its physical size.

samstave 13y ago

Medical, construction, engineering all provide a great opportunity for glass.

hnriot 13y ago

yes, going the way of the Segway, this is exactly how people rationalized their use too.

semiprivate 13y ago

While those are novel applications and would probably work well in a repair situation, those things would be better managed by software that alerted you when things like "inspection time had been exceeded" or if "pressures were out of range". Having to look at every pipe and piece manually to check it's stats is error prone at best. "You mean we have all this stuff recorded and in a database, but I have to go look at it to get the info?"

snom380 13y ago
You're confusing the use case. If course you can already look up the data and get alerts, and every modern plant already does. But getting hands on data when you're at the plant isn't just helpful for repairs or inspections, it's helpful for lots of things including debugging problems, helping new employees learn about the plant and "map" the processes to the physical layout of the pipes. Nowadays people lug around papers or tablets, so this would just be an extension of that.

Wingman4l7 13y ago

Aren't there already HUDs in limited / experimental use in such applications?