Table of contents

• Background
• What is Augmented Reality
• Types of Augmented Reality
• Next Step

Background

I will develop AR Game with Unity, AR foundation and so on. To learn AR development, I am researching about AR and the software related it. This blog shows the research and the process of developing AR game. If you have a question, I am happy to answer it.

What is Augmented Reality

The term "augment" means to add something. Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that enhances the real world by overlaying digital information throungh devices such as smartphones and AR glasses. A well-known application of AR in gaming is Pokemon GO. In Pokemon GO, players use their smartphone cameras to display Pokemon in the real world. When displaying AR on a smartphone, various functionalities such as the camera, GPS, accelerometer, and compass are utiliized to create the augmented experience.

Types of Augmented Reality

AR primarily has two types. One of them is Marker-based AR. Another type is Markerless AR.

Marker-based AR

This type displays 3D objects on a marker by reading the marker, such as a QR code or an image.

Example

Markerless AR

This type can display 3D objects without markers. Instead, it uses the sensors or camera of smartphones, relying on these functions.
It is used in Pokemon GO.

This type is further divided into three subtypes, which are location based AR, projection based, and superimpostion AR.

Location based

Due to the availability of smartphone feature that provide location detection, it shows AR to a specific place by getting data from a device’s camera, GPS, digital compass, and accelerometer.

Example

Projection based

This type uses a small projecter.It focuses on rendering virtual objects within or on a user’s physical space. Since virtual objects are projected on user's physical space directly, the change of the environment reclects the virtual objects.

Example

Superimpostion (Object Tracking)

This type is also called object tracking AR. It literally tracks objects. It can replace an original view of an object with a scaled version of the same object.

Example

Next step

This post showed what is AR and the types of AR. I will use some of them to create AR Game.
Next post will show the research of AR foundation.