Augmented Reality Technology

Category: Augmented Reality Technology

Augmented reality to be incorporated into army training

Julie Campbell | January 29, 2014

A number of different virtual tools will be used to help to enhance the ability to prepare troops.

With the goal of innovating the training process, the Army has decided to work more augmented reality tools and virtual environments into its training process, including the use of games.

The goal is to ensure that troops will be more ready for major field exercises.

At the same time, this is making it possible to provide the necessary instruction and experience within the limitations of a tight budget. A Sources Sought notice has now been issued by the Army Contracting Command, requesting that interested companies provide a demonstration of mature technologies designed for military training that can be used at home bases. Tech should include augmented reality tools that individual soldiers will be able to use, or units that are smaller than a company.

These augmented reality and virtual tools would be employed for home base training.

The training would occur ahead of the Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) 15.1, which will occur in Fort Bliss, Texas and in White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, near the end of the year in October and November. During this time, it is the intention of the Army to conduct an evaluation of its tactical network baseline among a number of different forms of scenarios of operations. It is the hope of command that it will receive the responses that it has been seeking by January 31.

The military has been expanding the types of technologies and virtual environments that it has been using for its training purposes in order to be able to continue to function within budgetary limitations. The Army simply does not have the resources available at the various individual bases to be able to provide all of its individual soldiers with the type of training that is required for a realistic experience. Technology is the solution that it has chosen for providing joint, international, interagency, and multinational environments. Simulations have been key to this effort.

Augmented reality presents the Army with the opportunity to train using a broad range of virtual programs worked into a single environment.

Augmented reality games think outside the box

Julie Campbell | January 17, 2014

PlayStation Vita now has an AR experience called “Open Me!”

PlaysStation Vita has now joined the consoles that are offering augmented reality games to their players, allowing the device camera to make it appear as though virtual elements are functioning within the real world.

This use of AR technology has already proven to be successful in the launch of the Nintendo 3DS.

Now, Open Me! is an augmented reality game that is available on PlayStation Vita and is being seen as one of the best attempts to show that using AR tech can give consumers and gamers a “good time.” This experience involves a number of different locked box puzzles, each of which has been rendered in 3D.

This augmented reality game uses an AR marker card to establish the position of the box in front of the player.

augmented reality games puzzle box Using the marker card lets the player use the Vita mobile device to be able to examine the puzzle box from any angle he or she would like. The purpose is to be able to identify the switch, button, or combination of those two things, which will allow the box to open. The earliest puzzles are the simplest, to allow the user to become used to the concept.

Once the basics have been learned, the designs of the puzzle boxes become increasingly complex. Among the options are certain examples that force the player to “think outside the box”, such as a cuckoo clock that requires the user to catch onto the fact that he or she must set the time on the clock to match that in the real world in order to open it correctly.

That said, there are also some puzzles that aren’t quite taking full advantage of what an augmented reality game has to offer, in that the controls of the game are not quite up to the precision level that is required in order to be able to complete the puzzle. Beyond that, there are certain boxes that need two Vita players to work together on a shared puzzle to be able to open them up – which is great as long as the user knows someone else with the same device and skill level.