Apart from VR, it is useful to briefly discuss the concept of Augmented Reality (AR). In our previous post, we have learned that VR applications completely replace a user field of view with, for instance, head mounted displays (HMD). Thus, a user is immersed into a VR environment such as 360° videos or VR game. In this VR a user sometimes can interact with the virtual objects and move around the VR scene.
In an AR a user field of view is not necessarily replaced with the virtual scene. A user can still see the physical world, however, this world is augmented with sounds, graphics or videos via a computer application. Namely, with an AR additional information is added to the physical world which surrounds a user. Currently, the most popular AR applications are produced for smartphones and, similarly to VR apps, mainly used in the gaming industry. However, different AR applications exist that are focused on, for instance, tourists (e.g. providing additional information about attraction sites, museum displays etc.), navigation (e.g. for vehicle or pedestrian routing), education and other.