Virtual, augmented and mixed reality: the different field of application

The real world is ever more melting with the digital one. The shadows are many and, while we are waiting for the incredible scenarios like Ready Player One, the technologies are doing giant steps. The duty to melt together the two worlds is up to the virtual, augmented and mixed reality. We often heard talking about these technologies, but very often we mistakenly swap them. Many times the difference between AR, VR and MR is very thin. But which are the differences between the realities? And which are their fields of applications?

Virtual and augmented reality: what are they?

AR and VR are two acronyms that we often heard using in the field of the technology and the videogames. They meant respectivelly Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.

The definitions are deducible by the name of the technology itself. Augmented reality means a kind of technology that overlaps thed digital world to the real one, by creating a powered version of it.

With the virtual reality, instead, the real world doesn’t appear at all. Otherwise, we are thrown into a fully digital world. A new dimension built from zero.

Which are the differences between VR and AR

The most evident difference between the Virtual Reality and the Augmented Reality is their way to use.

For the augmented reality, infact, we only need a smartphone or a tablet. Any store propose a large choice of applications in AR and their usage is very easy.

For the virtual reality, instead, we need a specific device, a viewer, to which we can add further accessories, like gloves, earphones and other devices that help us to enter in the digital world with all the senses.

Basically the main difference between the two kinds of reality is the “level of immersive”. The virtual reality is without any doubt much more immersive than the augmented one, but this isn’t absolutely good.

And the mixed reality?

To all of it, then, we have to add the mixed reality, to further complicate everything.

The Mixed Reality is a mix between the virtual reality and the augmented reality, as we can easily understand by the name.

We can consider the mixed reality as an evolution of the augmented reality. In this new dimension the virtual objects aren’t only saw in the real environment (as it happens in the AR), but we have the possibility to interact with them (as if we are in VR).

Here the possibilities are much more than in the other two, the experience will be much more immersive and very dynamic and interactive. All of it without lose the contact with the reality.

Fields of application of the virtual reality

Today the fields of application of the virtual reality, as well as for the other two technologies, are many.

• Gaming: if we think to the virtual reality our first thought goes to the gaming. The videogames world is without any doubt one of the sector that most use this technology. But it isn’t the only one.

• Medicine: the medicine is using the virtual reality to realize, for example, simulations of very complex surgeries to evaluate all the possible scenarios that the surgeons might face with.
• Education: the field of the education welcomed the virtual reality with all the praises. Many are using virtual environments to better train students and employees.
• Architecture: an architect is able to create a projection of his job in his mind in any moment, but with the virtual reality anyone can see how the project will be.
• Turism: lastely, the turism, never like this year, used the virtual reality. They aren’t only fake scenarios, infact, but even touristic sites of the real world found space in the new dimension.

Fields of application of the augmented reality

Even the augmented reality found largely space in the field of the gaming and the education, but not only. In this dimension found space even the publishing, the restaurants, the marketing, the advertising and the entertainment.

In the world of the restaurants, for example, it was born an application that allows the customers of a restaurant to overlap the camera on the empthy plate and to view how will appear the chosen meal.

Fields of application of the mixed reality

And the mixed reality? The mixed reality is still hard to use in our daily life, but it will represent, without any doubt, the perfect way to create the right interaction between human and machine, to enter in the digital without left the real.

As well as the other two, it finds a lot of space in the field of the gaming. But not only. The fields of application go from the tourism, to the medicine, from the retail to the cooperation. Right about it, infact, it is able to create great relationships of cooperation even from remote.

This post is also available in: Italiano