SLAM And The Future Of AR
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have become two of the biggest trends in development and business since 2010. Two technologies that were highly connected to the gaming industry are now finding their way into more and more sectors. With multiple examples on the topic, let’s break down what possibly is the biggest technology in the industry, Simultaneous Localization And Mapping.
What Is SLAM?
Simultaneous Localization And Mapping is an AR/VR application that translates data from the real world into the digital one and vice-versa. The entire process works by combining peripherals which are collecting the data to then transmit these to a central brain, which is elaborating the entire matter in order to create better virtual projections. Although this is seen as a strictly VR-related matter, there are certain AR examples of the technology that we can take into consideration.
The Niantic Paradigm
Niantic has always been praised for their AR IDE (Internal Development Environment) and for their User Experience. Even if Pokemon GO wasn’t a total success, the overall technical back-end of the software was incredibly well made. SLAM was used, in this case, in a very embryonic version, in order to manifest the little monsters in our world, even if they were not actually interacting with it. The creatures were, in fact, simply “glued” to what our camera was capturing, limiting the SLAM projection to a simple “one-way gathering”.
How This Can Change
Let’s keep on taking Pokemon GO as an example. If the app would have been coded and developed today, the SLAM application could have let the Pokemon interact with the real world in a virtual projection generated by our camera. This is, in fact, the “two-way gathering” process many SLAM app development and mobile app development companies are trying to do, with all the hardware limitations in between.
Hardware Implementation
The mobile world is pretty much all sorted, given the fact that every smartphone has a camera and a microphone, which automatically tells us that the hardware is capable to both gather and process the data from the surrounding environment. SLAM will, of course, boost the quality of the reproduction, but, for now, the limitations are purely related to processors and RAM.
The Evolution Of The Matter
When AR started way back in the days, floor algorithms (the ones used to scan QWERTY codes) were considered incredibly advanced, almost the pinnacle of AR development. With the above-mentioned technologies in mind, there will surely be several implementations of SLAM AR and VR powered apps in the near future, ranging from gaming to everything in between. The future, at least for what concerns VR and AR development, is pretty bright.
Special thanks to our guest author!
Author: Paul Matthews
Paul Matthews is a Manchester based business writer who writes in order to better inform business owners on how to run a successful business. You can usually find him at the local library or browsing Forbes’ latest pieces.