Once the province of Hollywood special effects wizards, computer science research departments and pilots of the F-35 Lightning II, Augmented Reality has leapt off the lab bench and come to life. You may have seen AR in movies like Minority Report, read about heads-up displays for fighter pilots or even come across a cheap, head-mounted, 3-D gaming display under the Christmas tree. Today, thanks to a new generation of smart phones and Webcam-equipped computers, AR is poised to emerge as one of the most influential new mediums of the decade.

At its most basic, Augmented Reality combines a digitally processed video feed with computer-generated imagery and data to augment a view of the real world in real time. If you’ve seen the yellow first-down stripe on a televised football game, you’ve seen a simple version of AR.

You won’t need a security clearance to experience AR. Point an AR-enabled phone at a street scene and you can find houses for sale, locate the nearest subway or see who is sending you tweets and where they are. On the home front, computer users can visit an AR-enabled Web site, hold up an AR marker to their Webcam, then try on the latest fashions, model a new pair of sunglasses or interact with a 3-D hologram that literally leaps out of their computer screens.

Corporations ranging from GE to Frito-Lay have taken note, with AR marketing efforts that bring to life GE’s Smart Grid and a Blink 182 mini-concert promo for Doritos created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners with help from Mekanism and Proto.

ZUGARA TRIES AR ON FOR SIZE
Interactive marketing agency Zugara’s Web Social Shopper is based on the idea that many people visit online shopping sites but leave without purchasing anything. Why? Perhaps because they can’t try on the items. The Web Social Shopper application aims to change that with an audacious combination of AR techniques, an interface straight out of Minority Report and its own proprietary motion-capture technology it calls ZugMo.

Standing in front of a Webcam in the privacy of her own home, a real shopper can try on virtual clothing, in what CEO Matthew Szymczyk calls, “An at the rack moment—when you hold something up to yourself, turn to someone and say ‘how does this look?’” Icons that appear in the AR interface can be controlled by the user, simply by gesturing, no data gloves required. As Szymczyk explains, “Motion capture actually ‘augments’ the traditional augmented reality experience.” The prototype has been hugely successful for Zugara. Szymczyk reports that since WSS launched, inbound requests to Zugara are up over 4,000 percent.

AUTODESK DOES REAL-WORLD AUGMENTED REALITY
At Autodesk Labs engineers are exploring how AR can help architects envision the impact their buildings will have on the urban landscape, down to shade patterns and wind effects. As Eddy Kuo, senior software engineering at Autodesk explains, “AR is a way to put something you are trying to design into the real world,” without the cost or hassle of building physical models.

Built by Brian Penne and Kuo, the Autodesk AR prototype uses a Web camera, a projected floor plan, Computer Vision software and fiducial markers to locate buildings on a site plan. Moving the markers on the tabletop projection invokes a display of 3-D-modeled high rises on a streetscape. The display shows, in real time, how shadows are cast, how the buildings relate to one another, and even calculates how wind patterns are generated depending on the location of the buildings. Instead of having to learn and manipulate complex 3-D software tools, users can see the results on screen simply by picking up the marker and turning it.

ADOBE INVITES DevelopARs
To make a splash at MAX, its big conference for Web designers, developers and marketers, Adobe created a special AR invitation on the Web. Built in-house by the MAX team, lead by creative director Amar Joseph, the tongue-in-cheek invite combines multiple data streams, including video objects as streaming video, 3-D objects and Flash, all intermingling simultaneously.

“We wanted a show-and-tell marketing experience for the end user that is atmospheric, tactile, experiential and educational,” Joseph explains. At MAX, a breeding place of technology, experimentation and design, Adobe plans on rolling out sessions specifically devoted to AR and Adobe enabling technologies such as Flash, the FLARToolkit, CS4, open source tools such as Papervision 3D and the SPARK project.

“It’s unexplored technology,” Joseph says. “We’re just at the starting gate of where we’re heading. People are innovating every day against this stuff. The opportunity is amazing.”

AR AUGMENTS REAL ESTATE
Anyone who wants to see the future of real estate need only pick up an iPhone or Android and point it down a tree-lined canal in Amsterdam. There, thanks to an incredible piece of AR programming called LAYAR, from SPRXmobile, every home for sale on a particular block appears augmented with real estate information. Simply scan the block and homes for sale pop onto a radar style grid, along with data such as address, asking price and phone number. Tap the screen once and more detailed information is presented. Tap and hold, and the phone rings through to the real estate agent handling the property.

According to SPRXmobile co-founder Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, the design team for LAYAR had “a bigger vision than the Internet could accommodate. The Web had pages, but the world has layers. We wanted to slice it like a layer cake. Design-wise, we had to figure out how to interface with reality in a digital screen. We incorporated a dot, a square, a radar grid. These small interactions and interface issues had never been dealt with before. We wanted the interface to be logical, new and fun.”