Intelligent Realities For Workers Using Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Beyond
as tools that can import existing CAD
drawings. In addition, AI can create 3D
content. Booz Allen ® has demonstrated the
use of generative adversarial networks to
greatly reduce the time and expense of
content creation for simulation. 16
computer vision is identifying parts of the
bus, such as the tires, engine, etc.
Mixing realities
An additional type of SDK is focused on the
mixing of digital and physical realities. To
properly place a digital reality in to physical
reality, the surfaces in the physical world and
lighting need to be understood. ARCore™
from Apple ® and ARKit™ from Google solve
these problems for iOS and Android,
respectively. 17
World Knowledge with Computer Vision
In Milgram’s paper cited earlier, the authors
identified the dimension of Extent of World
Knowledge, with the end points of an
unmodelled world and a completely
modelled world. For AR applications, an
application needs to at least partially model
the world, which the authors divided in to
knowing what an object in the view is and
where it is in the view.
Intelligent Reality and AI
The various technologies under the AI
umbrella are quickly becoming just
additional tools in the developer toolbox.
This is certainly true in the XR space. For
example, when the original Microsoft
HoloLens released in 2016, it came with both
voice recognition and computer vision
available to application developers. 18
For enterprise reality applications, the
identity of an object matters. For example, a
fleet manager standing in front of a bus
needs to know exactly what bus it is, not just
that it is a bus. Object identity can be
achieved by reading bar codes, QR codes,
text or other uniquely identifying marks.
But there is a lot more room for AI in the
intelligent reality space than these baked-in
features. The following sections look at
several areas where AI can provide value to
workers’ perceptions of their realities.
Once an asset is identified, natural feature
tracking and object recognition can be
employed to recognize component parts.
For example, the fleet manager can first
glance at the license plate of the bus and
then see the correct data-driven overlays for
that bus as they move around because
Overcoming XR UI Limitations
Just as the transition from desktop to smart
phone apps required new approaches,
reality apps introduce their own UI
16 N.
Mehta et al., “The Role of AI in a VR World,” GPU Technology Conference, October 2018. Available: http://on-
demand.gputechconf.com/gtcdc/2018/pdf/dc8209-the-role-of-ai-in-a-vr-world-presented%20by-booz-allen-hamilton.pdf
17
M. Giles, “AR still doesn’t have a killer app, but Google’s ARCore is here to help,” MIT Technology Review, Feb 2018.
Available: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610336/ar-still-doesnt-have-a-killer-app-but-googles-arcore-is-here-to-help/
18
D. Bohn and T. Warren, “Up close with the HoloLens, Microsoft’s most intriguing product in years,” The Verge, January, 2015
[online]. Available: https://www.theverge.com/2015/1/21/7868251/microsoft-hololens-hologram-hands-on-experience
IIC Journal of Innovation
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