What is the complexity of augmented and mixed reality applications? In development? In UI/UX design? Concept? In the department? In research? Or…. everywhere?
The fact is: programming is almost the easiest part of such applications. The example in the attached video consists of quite a few lines of code. Most technologies for MR/AR applications are already firmly integrated in the respective programming languages and are easy to use. This allows you to “tinker” with a functioning prototype very quickly.
However, it will not be possible to create enterprise applications with these on-board resources, for example. to scale, to get 10,000s of users on the app, to enable the company-wide use of AR/MR, to realize business cases. Regardless of whether AR/MR is used in industrial production, in service, as a multimedia add-on for print products, in gamification, etc. – two things are needed to turn technology into a business case:
- the company must realize that AR/MR applications must be “maintained”. The prototype must become a scalable, updatable, expandable application that must be permanently enriched with content. Providing this content is often a major challenge. When election posters, for example When the politicians start to speak, the corresponding videos have to be produced, classified, organized in terms of marketing and made technically available so that they can then “come to life” on the print poster. If the service technician has the defective washing machine in the picture and the component to be replaced is to be highlighted, the associated exploded drawings, parts lists, 3D visualizations, manuals, etc. must have been identified, assigned and “sorted” into the app. When advertising in magazines starts to move, sales staff have to organize the appropriate content (e.g. videos in the right format) from the customer, the number of views has to be logged and billing has to take place. Users must also first “know” that they should view the product in AR/MR (and “why”). If, for example, the users are able to access certain content by viewing it. points, an infrastructure for gamification, bonus content, challenges, etc. is also required. All these activities need to be organized, planned and tailored to the AR/MR application.
- the application must be technically enabled to scale on a large scale. Be it because there is a huge amount of content that needs to be captured in multimedia form or because large numbers of users are expected. AR/MR applications are multimedia applications that require smart and optimized algorithms for searching and finding, for quick access to content, despite state-of-the-art hardware. This is where the “Research” area comes into play. For example, we were able to Develop algorithms that optimize existing multimedia processing by a factor of 10,000 (see https://www.mdpi.com/2504-2289/5/3/33 or https://www.mdpi.com/2504-2289/7/2/70) and thus ensure that AR/MR becomes possible on a large scale in the first place.
This combination of organizational, (programming) technical and scientific knowledge leads to enterprise AR/MR applications that provide customers/users with real and scalable added value. For me, this is an excellent example of industry-oriented research and innovative applications.