3D and Education

Augmented Reality is a renaissance of creativity

By Divyadarshini
New Delhi, April 07: Through AVATAR, Hollywood has made the most successful attempt to build a hype around 3D mania with the global civilization. The box office success of the movie, followed by two other mega-budgeters, Alice in Wonderland & Clash of the Titans, has defined the path about to be traversed by 3 D technology.

3D or Augmented Realty (AR) has already crossed its budding stage. But the question that creeps into every mind is what AR actually means. 

In contrast to the Virtual Reality system, which focuses over substituting the  outlook of the world  using an artificial one; Augmented Reality (AR)  enhances  an individual’s perception of his/her surroundings.  This amalgamation of virtual and real has served to become new interface technology for  AR. This has in turn enabled the display of relevant information at right location and time, thereby  offering many potential applications such as  education, training, manufacturing, repairing or maintenance,  medicine, battlefield, and/or entertainment.

It is worth putting forward a few facts in relation to AR to help gauge the expectancy level from technology.

For those of you who have watched the 3D version of AVATAR, the experience must have been thrilling. It is awe-inspiring with the breathtakingly magnificent “Pandora” and the “Navi people” that James Cameron created. When technology can aid in creating such wonders; when they do not even exist, it certainly may leave one pondering over whether or not its application to education will make the learning process more real, attractive and effective for the generations to come?

The potential of AR in the educational field is still being explored yet   the Augmented Reality Group has undertaken certain projects. They are involved in many university-industry research collaboration projects, such as Innovative Learning using Augmented Technology (MIMOS Berhad) and Augmented Toys Technology (ATTech).

AR’s efficiency can be measured by the fact that the image being projected in front of you does not hinder your touching and seeing the actual objects and does not even restrict your movements. This will specially help researchers and life science students who can go through their tasks with much more ease, adding value to the process of teaching along with making learning and training completely thrilling.