North green bird design training: AR: virtual reality intertwined with the "magic" of the future?

Fingers sketched in the air, the air then appeared virtual screen, click on the screen can be used like a tablet computer or cell phone to achieve a variety of functions, this is a science fiction movie will appear in the scene, but the augmented reality (AR) technology is letting the imagination become a reality.

From the AR social game "Pokemon GO" to the AR red envelopes of "Sweeping Fortune" to the AR effects on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala, AR technology, which bridges the real and virtual worlds, is moving at full speed to "fly into the hearts of ordinary people".

Data from a third party shows that by 2024, the market size of AR products will reach $165 billion, and grow at a high rate of 80% annual growth.

The so-called augmented reality is to display the real world at the same time, the virtual information at the same time, through the combination of the virtual and real world to completely change the way of information transfer and efficiency.

Corporate giants are making frequent efforts in this market, fully demonstrating that they are optimistic about the prospects of this new technology.

Google is vigorously promoting its AR platform Tango, and Apple CEO Cook said AR represents the future of smartphones.

Some news shows that Apple is developing a variety of AR products, and even some analysts frankly said that AR will replace the iPhone in the future, and Apple has no choice.

Why is augmented reality technology focusing on this point in time right now? What are the practical application scenarios? What changes will it bring to the lives of ordinary people?

Data from Tencent shows that during this year's Spring Festival, the number of users involved in AR red envelopes was as high as 257 million, and the number of times users received card coupons and cash red envelopes amounted to 2.05 billion, with the number of times individual AR red envelopes were sent reaching 15.2 million.

Alipay Inc. said that more than 160 million people collected the five blessings this year by scanning the offline blessings,****.

Liu Tiancheng, a senior engineer at Tencent's Social Networking Business Group, i.e. the product department, told reporters that the outbreak of AR apps comes from the improvement of the performance of hardware devices.

"The improvement of mobile device performance is key, for example, AR apps to superimpose virtual information on the real scene, it is necessary to use three-dimensional image rendering, which requires the computing power of the intelligent CPU can support, but also need the camera clarity is high enough, and have a high-precision gyroscope and GPS.

With the rapid popularization of the smart phone , roughly 80 percent or more of smartphones are now capable of providing a decent AR experience.

"Liu Tiancheng said.

Zero Long, Alipay's AR Live Red Packet product leader, said the blossoming of AR applications also comes from breakthroughs in the technology itself.

"The key to AR applications is to be able to recognize the real environment, such as sweeping the word 'Fu', it is necessary for the phone to be able to recognize that it is a word of fortune.

Artificial intelligence in the past year the level of enhancement and optimization of algorithms to improve the recognition efficiency and accuracy.

At the same time, and location services, skeletal animation, 3D rendering and a series of other technologies through, also allows AR technology can be widely applied to more scenes.

"Zero Dragon said.

AR technology is often compared to VR (virtual reality) technology, what are the differences between the two? From the hardware point of view, to achieve a good experience effect of VR equipment hardware threshold is higher, most need a specialized VR helmet and high-performance terminal equipment, the price is quite expensive, HTCVive helmet consumer version of the price of nearly 7,000 yuan, but the smartphone will be able to complete most of the AR applications.

From the use of the scene, due to the isolation of the real world, VR can only be used to "concentrate", the combination of real and virtual AR applications can be used to take advantage of the fragmented time.

Some market research organizations say that by 2020, the market value of AR will be four times that of VR.

However, Liu Tiansheng also said that these differences are also related to the current AR applications are still "simplified version", "whether it is more accurate recognition of the reality of the scene, perception of the environment, or through gesture recognition and other ways to join the user interaction, AR applications will also be the same demand for professional equipment! ".

A new pattern of interactive opening? In Xiamen's busiest Zhongshan Road, sweep a "anti-fraud propaganda poster", you can get a red packet, this is the Xiamen police to carry out anti-fraud propaganda new model.

Like the Xiamen police, a large number of businesses, including Coca-Cola, KFC, Uniqlo and others, are also carrying out a wide variety of AR marketing.

Within the many areas of AR application, AR marketing is arguably the most mature application at present.

The reason is quite simple: in this "blue ocean" of AR, marketing is the business model that is most likely to get the support of the "gold master".

One of the reasons why brands are so keen on AR marketing is that the combination of the real world and the virtual world brings more information.

In traditional offline displays, both posters and product packaging are limited in size, and information must be streamlined.

But with the addition of AR technology, the additional digital content is not only rich, but can also cover a variety of forms including sound, animation and video.

Heinz has experimented with AR marketing for its ketchup, where consumers scan the ketchup label on the bottle with their phone, and a digital recipe appears showing a variety of cuisines made with ketchup, including cooking videos.

In the end, 170,000 consumers participated in the campaign and the AR app was opened 470,000 times.

Tiancheng Liu admitted: "The AR app jumped out of the limitations of the QR code and generated more information flow, making the cell phone a real connector from online to offline, and therefore a direction for brands to explore commercially.

"? The more important reason is that under the general trend of consumer upgrading, the needs of consumers have changed, and they attach more importance to interaction and participation.

The addition of AR technology makes marketing more fun.

Taking the case of Heineken beer, after scanning the beer bottles, consumers can take a photo with the farmer who grows the hops and share it to social networks.

Computer training/discovery market research firm Deloitte digital analyst Jay Samet said, "Consumers always like to choose the shopping environment, and interacting with the brand is exactly part of the environment, AR technology will open up a new landscape of marketing".

Data from AR platform Blippar Inc. also shows that the total number of annual interactions on Blippar is more than 65 million, with an average dwell time of 75 seconds for AR user use, and an average interaction rate of between 1 and 15 percent.