Member Article

How to Combine the Best of Both Worlds with Mixed Reality

Virtual reality (VR) epitomizes immersive storytelling and augmented reality (AR) transforms the world around you into an enhanced version of itself. What happens when you combine both — when you create a whole new environment by integrating the physical with the digital? Better yet, what happens when you not only combine objects, but the data that creates and defines them as well? You arrive at mixed reality (MR), a hybrid that has the potential to be bigger than both of its progenitors.

When Reality and Digital Meet

Whereas virtual reality creates a whole new environment that completely shuts of reality, augmented reality inserts a digital overlay that turns the real world into digital media. Mixed reality does this, but also adds sugar, spice and everything nice to create something even better. Instead of stopping at an overlay, mixed reality goes above and beyond by actually using the environment as an input; it scans everything around you to get a three-dimensional understanding of everything so that you can seamlessly interact with digital elements while they interact with you and your surroundings.

In other words, the combination of digital data with real components creates an amalgamation that brings out the best of both worlds. It produces a single reality peopled by elements of both, in which everyone and everything acts as an active participant.

Another way of understanding mixed reality is by comparing it with VR and AR: virtual reality places you on Mars, augmented reality brings a Martian to life in your living room, and mixed reality gives a Martian the ability to interact with you and your environment.

A New World of Possibilities

The seamless blending of the physical and virtual creates a hybrid world where we can interact naturally with digital elements. By creating a 3D map of your surroundings, including objects, people and structures, mixed reality devices know exactly where everything is located, allowing for realistic placements that promote the real-world interactions that characterize mixed reality. This interaction opens up a new world of possibilities in areas such as gaming, communication, education, and everyday life.

Gaming

One of the most sought after benefits of mixed reality comes in the gaming industry. Imagine it, you’re hiding behind your couch when you hear footsteps coming from your kitchen. You peek over and you see a shadow that looks humanoid, but not exactly human. What could it be? You decide to risk it all when, out of nowhere, an explosion rocks your apartment. You turn around to see a gaping hole where your front door is supposed to be, and streaming in are countless armed aliens, robots, and all sorts of science fiction staples. Well, you think as you grab your own weapon, things are gonna get messy.

Communication

Have you seen Kingsman: The Secret Service or its sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle? If you have, then you’re familiar with the ‘holoportation’ type of communication the agents engage in. If you haven’t, then picture this: you’re sitting around a table with empty seats. You put on special glasses when suddenly, the seats are filled with friends, family, or coworkers, who aren’t even in the same city, state, country, or even continent as you. That’s what mixed reality can do; it opens an avenue for communication that mimics real life interactions.

Education

Mixed reality can be of great benefit for education in a variety of ways. Like communication, teachers can be based in one location while their students are situated everywhere else. For one, this would allow students in hard-to-reach areas to get the education they deserve, even if they can’t physically go to a school. Second, the need for physical schools will be all but eliminated, greatly reducing educational costs because there’s no need to actually host classrooms.

Then there’s the potential to study things, let’s say the human body, without actually opening or dissecting one. Students can study anything, from the complexities of the brain, to the mechanics of movement, without ever touching an actual body part. This doesn’t end with anatomy, mixed reality can be used for practically any discipline that uses models, whether biological or not. For example, mechanical engineers can take an engine apart, modify it, and put it back together — all without getting a single oil stain on their clothes.

Everyday Life

Branching out, mixed reality can affect everyday life in many ways. For instance, have you noticed how many ads are plastered in cities everywhere? Well, imagine being able to replace them with pictures of you? Or maybe you prefer animals. You would be able to switch out every advert with cats, dogs, kangaroos, sharks, capybaras — whatever you want.

You could even ‘travel’ to different time periods and experience a day in the life of an early 20th Century citizen. With mixed reality, you can see the people around you in time-appropriate garments, cars can revert back to their prewar counterparts, smartphones can be replaced with newspapers, and so on. The possibilities are quite literally endless.

The Downside of MIxed Reality

We can’t talk about the benefits of mixed reality without touching on its faults, which, ironically, stem from the environmental inputs that make it so great. Because our environment will be scanned and everything within it recorded and documented, a 3D blueprint of sorts with everything will be created. Now imagine what happens if that blueprint falls in the wrong hands —possibly a hacker. They could use or sell that information to someone who would then have free reign and would know where everything is located in your home or office.

That’s not to say that you should completely give up on the wonders of mixed reality, though. There will undoubtedly be safeguards in place to prevent such scenarios from happening. After all, we’re still in its early stages and there’s a lot to look forward to.

Final Thoughts

Before we had any type of alternate reality, our digital interactions were confined to two-dimensional images in rectangular screens. Then came virtual reality and its ability to transport us to a completely virtual environment where the only limits came from our own imaginations, and augmented reality that acts as an in-between, adding a digital overlay on the real world, with the drawback of not actually taking it into account. Now we have mixed reality, which creates an interaction between computer and real world environments, bringing the digital to life in a way that’s never been done before.

This blog post is published by Matthew, he is a content writer for Aumcore, a digital agency based in NYC, and specializes in brand strategy and digital video advertising.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matthew Fritschle .