While VR gets a lot of attention for immersive technology, it’s AR (Augmented Reality) that is so far proving to be the real game-changer with more day to day and business applications driving its development for the future. Google continues to realise this which is why it announced its ARCore earlier this year to help developers make the most out of their Android phone capabilities and drive more AR implementation on the platform.
The company has been hard at work in further refining their AR capabilities and according to the company (as revealed by The Verge) it’s ready to unveil some next-generation upgrades to depth detection and physics it’s achieved, which promises to make AR experiences seem much more realistic in the future.
The upgrades, part of ARCore’s all-new Depth API, will soon allow developers to perform what’s known as occlusion, which is when an artificial object can be blocked from view by other real-world objects in a scene. For example, it could allow you to place a virtual object in your living room that can partially disappear from view when you angle your camera in a way that places a bed or table or some other object in between – instead of having the AR elements overlayed on top.
The new changes will also allow for 3D mapping and more realistic physics so that the augmented objects can better interact with the real world. So, in the future, you could expect to see a whole lot of more realistic behaviour and interaction from your Pokémon in Pokémon Go because we all know that I the only use many of you are really getting out of AR. It will be interesting though to see what developers can do with Google’s enhanced AR toolset and if it can further help it drive the technology into the mainstream.
Last Updated: December 10, 2019
