Creating Augmented and Virtual Realities

Afterword

Tony Parisi

Building the Mirrorworld

VR. AR. MR. XR. AI. CV. ML. AR cloud… the list goes on.

This isn’t just a grab-bag of trendy tech buzzwords; it comprises the foundation of a spatial computing future that is right around the corner.

We are moving to a new paradigm for accessing information, consuming entertainment, learning, doing our jobs, and communicating with each other. It’s a shift from 2D graphical representations viewed on flat screens—pinhole cameras into today’s incomprehensibly vast digital world—to immersive 3D visualizations of objects and spaces laid out all around us. This will not only imbue us with brand-new superpowers that allow us to transcend space and time; it will, generally, make these computer thingies that are inextricably enmeshed in our daily lives so much easier to use. We live in a 3D world: people move, think, and experience in three dimensions. Isn’t it time our computer interfaces got out of the way and let us do the same with digital information? It’s about the digital, made physical.

Perhaps more significantly, this step change is also about making the physical digital. Every mobile phone is already a camera; add another camera or two, and with a little help from computer vision algorithms powered by machine learning data, we have digital x-ray vision capable of recognizing images and objects and laying bare their contents for all to see. Every real-world object becomes its own display surface that can be enhanced with animated ...