What is Extended Reality

Extended reality (XR) is a term that encompasses real and virtual environments that are generated by wearable devices or computer technology to provide an immersive experience. It can also be described as a collection of all immersive technologies that combine real and virtual worlds.

How XR is different from AR/VR

• Virtual Reality (VR)

This immersive technology employs a head-mounted display (HMD) to provide an immersive expression through a simulation (or simulated environment). The simulated digital environment makes users feel as if they are there.

• Augmented Reality (AR)

In this component of XR, smart devices are used to overlay sounds and digital graphics in the real world. Some of the digital details overlaid into the real-world environment include images, animation, and texts. This enhanced experience can be achieved using AR screens, tablets, smartphones or screens.

How Extended Reality Works

From a developer's perspective, the extended reality is achieved by designing immersive algorithms. Software developers and data scientists should design clever and efficient algorithms to produce interesting XR features that offer these unique user experiences.

Other important concepts that need to be incorporated by developers of immersive technologies include 3D modeling and advanced computer vision. Artificially intelligent programs are made using machine learning, biomechanical modeling, and motion tracking.

Some of the programming languages used in the design of extended reality include C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, and Swift.

From a user perspective, the three main components of XR perform specific roles to provide an immersive experience. within AR solutions, smartphone cameras are used to capture a section of the environment. These solutions then scan the captured environment to identify a specific point where additional information will be overlaid.

Computer-generated content or digital information is then overlaid onto the captured environment using markers. Trackers such as laser, GPS, infrared, and other sensors can also be used to overlay information in the aforementioned environment. MR works similarly to AR, although the former provides a more advanced immersive experience than the latter, by allowing the mixed interaction of virtual objects with the real world.

Virtual reality works by using a person’s senses to provide a uniquely immersive experience. The main senses used in VR include touch, sight, and hearing. It also uses the power of the mind. Various features of VR provide users with unique experiences that reconfigure the mind. In most cases, a headset is used to provide this kind of experience because of its ability to influence the senses of the user.

The five senses utilized or influenced in immersive technologies are as follows:

• Sight: In extended reality devices, a computer-created reality is seen by the users, which gives them an immersive experience. This occurs because the computer-generated reality is laid in over a real-world environment. This visual experience is mostly offered in video games, especially on PlayStation and Nintendo gaming platforms. In some museums, 360-degree cameras have been mounted on XR headsets to provide the users with a unique visual experience.

• Hearing: Sounds in XR devices can be heard from all directions. These devices enable users to perceive sound as they would in real situations. For example, within a football match in a video game, users will hear the sound of football fans, which would also happen in real life.

• Touch: The sense of touch is also integrated into extended reality to improve user experience. In XR devices, gloves and bodysuits are used to give users a sense of touch within the simulation. Wearable devices use haptic technology, that employs a feedback system that helps with the expression of vibrations and motions.

• Taste and Smell: These are new fields in extended reality that are undergoing research and development. Scent cartridges are used to provide a sense of smell. These cartridges produce pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant scents. Electrodes can be placed on a user’s tongue to provide a simulated sense of taste.

Important features

• Seamless Data Access and Analysis

  Eye tracking, emotion monitoring, behavior analytics, biofeedback, biometrics, and spatial analytics — extended reality mechanisms easily collect action-ready data during immersive experiences and make that data ready for further analysis and decision-making.

• Enhanced User Engagement

  Personalized virtual shopping, virtual reality gamification, “try-on” experiences, virtual introductions of new products and services, AR-based assistance — XR is here to drive

• Increased Knowledge Retention

  Improved learning capabilities and results, including a reduction in learning time itself, are other benefits of extended reality.

• Lower Operational Costs

  Besides being more effective, dynamic, and engaging than traditional learning methods, XR-fueled training saves time and money. Employees don’t have to travel or hire training specialists to get first-class training. All that can be done at the office or from home — productively, fast, and in an engaging way.

• Improved Communication and Collaboration

  Effective collaboration within the team is a formula for success. Where traditional methods of enhancing communication and collaboration become obsolete, XR comes into play.

  By using extended reality apps, teams can simultaneously work on projects and co-design products even when they’re in different countries. Underpinned by VR-based conferences and interactive 3D avatars, the collaboration process becomes more efficient and engaging.

What is Mixed Reality

Mixed reality is a combination of both AR & VR, where one can interact with the digital as well as the real world simultaneously. Users can visualize their surroundings in special MR devices. These MR devices are much more powerful than VR, and costly too! But these devices give you the power to interact with the surroundings digitally. For example, putting on an MR device will give you a view of your entire surroundings. You can do whatever you want, throw a ball, close the windows, etc which will be digitally in your MR headset, but in actual reality, things will remain as they are. Many companies are investing a huge amount of money for deeper research in this field of reality.

In a nutshell, using Extended Reality(XR), people can visit places virtually, feel the same as they are present at that place, interact with other individuals on XR. Thus, it is a combination of all three AR, VR & MR.

Dev Tools for Extended Reality

• Unity 3D

  

  Unity's XR platform aims to provide the tools necessary to achieve the core principle of the Unity engine – "Build once, deploy anywhere" – for VR and AR projects so that you can target any number of different platforms and devices with a single version of your content.

  Using Unity, developers can create immersive XR experiences by building 3D environments and adding interactive elements, such as audio, video, and animations.

• Blender

  

  Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. Advanced users employ Blender’s API for Python scripting to customize the application and write specialized tools; often these are included in Blender’s future releases. Blender is well suited to individuals and small studios who benefit from its unified pipeline and responsive development process.

• Unreal Engine

  

  Unreal Engine is a free-to-use game development engine owned by Epic Games. It can create a large variety of 3D, 2D, and VR game styles. The platform is known for its impressive graphical and lighting capabilities. It includes a library of materials, objects, and characters. In addition to supported coding languages, Unreal Engine offers a visual editor, called Blueprints, for creating the rules of the game, which requires no coding experience.

• Three.js

  

  Three.js is an open source JavaScript library that is used to display the graphics, 3D and 2D objects on the web browser. It uses WebGL API behind the scene. Three.js allows you to use your GPU(Graphics Processing Unit) to render the Graphics and 3D objects on a canvas in the web browser. since we are using JavaScript so we can also interact with other HTML elements.

Uses of Extended Reality

• Entertainment Industry: The entertainment industry can hugely benefit from XR, just the same way they are benefitting from AR & VR. The entertainment industry can find new and amazing ways to utilize this technology and earn profits.

• Sales & Marketing: Companies can advertise their product via XR, & can give their users a hands-on experience about their product or service. This can be beneficial, as companies will have to spend less on their advertisement, rather they can directly give their customers the experience of using the product.

• Housing & Real Estate: One can easily find the suitable housing via a brief walkthrough using XR, & owners can also find potential buyers from various other locations, as there will be no need to go through physically. The role of brokers would be eradicated in such a scenario.

• Education & Training: The use of XR can be a boon for this industry. Students all across the globe can find and choose the right colleges & study there is at their location. Anyone could use this technology to study in any institution around the globe. Also, the training of employees and workers can be done remotely using XR.

• Work From Home for Remote Areas: The employees & staff can visualize a live environment of their office or workplace & can attend meetings from their homes, and also instruct others on how to work, from their homes. Especially, when the area is remote & difficult to work, XR can be used so that the work can be done from home.

Major Challenges

XR developers are facing certain challenges that are limiting their capabilities. Developing these technologies requires the collection and use of huge amounts of personal data (which needs to be protected).

This spread of data may make companies vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Implementing immersive technology is costly, which has barred many companies from investing in extended reality.

Companies are required to develop wearable devices that are comfortable and fashionable. Before implementing immersive technologies, developers have to deal with technical issues such as power, connectivity, motion tracking, and common illumination. A few more challenges are mentioned below,

• Cost: Cost is the most prominent challenge, that is faced by companies developing XR. The XR devices are very costly. Since many technologies are working together & a lot of hardware goes into the making of these devices, the cost is very high. If the cost is higher, common masses may not be able to use this product and companies developing would not able to increase their sales, this would not motivate the investors to invest their money into XR.

• Hardware: Developing the hardware of XR devices is also a challenge for companies in this field. Since a lot of technologies, software & components are being used, making hardware is a difficult task. The hardware should just not be robust but also be compact and able to process a lot of information very quickly and swiftly, and on top of that, the hardware should be cheaper.

• Privacy: Privacy is a challenge that will be faced both by the users as well as the companies. Since XR devices are required to create an environment based on the user requirement, a lot of private details might be needed to create a user-rich environment. Storage of such data can be costly on the company’s side, & privacy of the information can be a worry on the user’s side.

The Future of XR

Extended reality may shape the future of machine-human interaction and digital transformations. The future will include many advanced and complex immersive technologies that will solve many global problems. We may also get to experience immersive technologies that use the sense of taste and smell. These are technologies that are currently under extensive research.

With the introduction of 5G technology, there will be increased adoption of extended reality in the future. This is due in part to the better-sustained network performance and uniform experience.

Finally, XR could greatly leverage mobile computing because of its increasing ability to revolutionize mobile experiences for users. It wouldn’t be surprising to find smartphones becoming some type of XR wearable.

Reference

🚩 https://youtu.be/lbJ-IKPn2l8?si=EquEbPQebWZxrz4F

🚩 https://youtu.be/XLP4YTpUpBI?si=zXRnwtvRvj4jSQV7

That's all for this blog, I hope you will learn something new. And feel free to share your thoughts and feedback, Thanks for reading.

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