Practical Augmented Reality

With Augmented Reality becoming a burgeoning method for reviewing and distributing 3D information in a quick an intuitive way, it is hard not to see its potential uses in many aspects of design. With the technology existing today, three dimensional prototypes can be displayed and manipulated in an instant. Although this may come as a financial blow to the makers of Xacto blades and fome core, it is easy to imagine a day when participants in a meeting would only have to hold up their phone screens to view a 3D model appearing on the top of their presentation packet.

Like any new technology, it is only as truly effective as there are device standards that allow anyone and everyone to view your 3D content. It is easy to imagine that an iPhone will someday soon (like next week) be able to accommodate this feature, but getting everyone to download an App and show up to a meeting with it installed is slim. Still, we can dream, and with easy to use applications like SketchUp available for free, it won't be long for the CPUs in standard hand held devices to not only be able to smoothly render such virtual models, but do it without the user needing any technical skills other then to point and view.