#MixedRealities Week 4: Beginning Unity Vuforia

(Screenshot of a scene I created, to test out Vuforia)

Unity Vuforia is a world deployed software engine, that is used to create various Augmented Reality apps. It supports a large number of platforms, including Android, IOS, windows, and UWP devices. I have chosen to use Vuforia, primarily due to it being implemented into the Unity engine, and extremely well documented. I have only used the engine for a short period of time (less then a week), but have already begun prototyping various ideas within it.

My first test with the program, involved creating a simple game/project in Unity, that displays a cube onto a target image through the use of the computers webcam. This means that when viewing the image, in game view, a grey cube will appear on top of it, as seen in the short video below:

(Short video of the project in action, focus on the game view panel to see the cube)

In order to create this project, I primarily followed the steps given in the Week 4 demonstration, which included: downloading Vuforia, activating the license key, creating a AR camera, and creating a new image target (which I set as the Astronaut preset) The image used for the image target can be seen below

(Preset texture that comes with Vuforia, I used it as my target image)

Unfortunately due to a lack of a USB cable, I was unable to deploy the project to Android.

As I continue working with, and learning more about Vuforia, I would like to eventually work on creating more immersive experiences, the key elements of which Mark Billinghurst ran over with us during his in class lecture:

Perception -

Our interpretation of the world around us through our various senses, which can be manipulated by synthesized inputs.

Presence -

The experience of being in one location/environment even when your actually in another.

While both of these concepts were primarily talked about in relation to Virtual Reality, I believe they can still be applied to Augmented Reality as well. This is because while AR doesn't fully immerse the user in a completely virtual world (VR) it still contains virtual elements, blended with the real world. AR is closer to the center of Milgram's mixed reality continuum, while VR is closer to the virtual end (Abdullahi.M.K 2016) .

(Milgrams Mixed Reality continuum (Abdullahi.M.K 2016) )

One of the ways presence can be created in AR is by making the virtual objects able to be interacted with. This is called haptic feedback, and it essentially replicates the sense of touch, making the object seem much more real/part of the world (Blenkinsopp, n.d) . Other ways to increase presence are Audio cues (stimulating the sense of hearing) and how well the object reacts to light (making it seem more lifelike).

References:

1. Blenkinsopp.R. (n.d., accessed on: 2020, August 31 at 8:43pm) What is Haptic Feedback. Ultraleep. https://www.ultraleap.com/company/news/blog/what-is-haptic-feedback/#:~:text=Haptic%20feedback%20allows%20storytellers%20to,or%20cast%20a%20magic%20spell.

2. Abdullahi.M.K. (2016, April 16) The Virtual Reality Continuum. Medium. https://medium.com/@Khullani/the-reality-virtuality-continuum-db166a704c01