Lei Feng Network Press: Author Tu Yi, the co-founder of Visionstar Technology. Visionstar Technology is an AR technology service provider and released EasyAR SDK last year. Following the explosion of Pokemon GO last week, Tu Yi was invited to explain the AR industry information to hundreds of secondary market securities analysts. This article is his reflection on the AR technology behind Pokemon GO's popularity.
The explosion of Pokemon GO has attracted everyone's attention. When analyzing the reasons for its success, the media and investors all believe that Nintendo's Pokemon, a powerful IP, provides the global fan appeal, and the LBS technology used by AR is considered to be The threshold is low, easy to imitate.
So is the threshold of AR technology really low? What is the ultimate experience of mobile AR?
AR Technique Rating in Pokemon Go: ★
The user experience brought by the AR technology can be called "sense of integration", which means that the virtual content is superimposed on the real-time image in real time, and they are perfectly combined to form a unique experience.
If you want to give Pokemon GO a comprehensive score, it should be like this: IP theme 5 stars (★★★★★), game 4 stars (★★★★), AR technology (combined feeling) 1 star ( ★).
As the first explosive AR game, Pokemon Go's AR technology is just one star to make everyone have a good time. In fact, it is mainly because people do not understand how AR technology uses 5 stars. There is no comparison.
If Pokemon GO will open up a new kind of game -- AR social games based on LBS, then in the future many games will enter the competition and want to achieve better results. All they can do is replace the same powerful IP and refresh their sense of freshness. AR technology experience. When several excellent AR games compete, the games that still use 1-star AR technology are believed to be mad at fans and the IP image will be affected.
| Based on LBS AR AR technology is only one of the easiest
Technical Rating: ★
As early as 2012, there have been various types of AR applications based on LBS technology, the most typical of which is AR map navigation. The following figure is a classic application of urban okia nokia lumia series. Â
However, the location information of LBS is not accurate. When the foreign country is good, the error can be controlled at 3 to 10 meters, and the domestic is generally 50 to 500 meters. This causes the location label of the architectural landmark not to be accurately "stuck" on the roof of the building. It can only lead to a general direction at a long distance, and chaos will occur when approaching. This inaccurate experience of "integration" of AR results in AR map navigation still cannot replace the position of traditional map navigation and can only exist as a niche.
Pokemon GO triggers the emergence of elfs based on LBS-based geographic location information. Because the elf is alive, there is no sense of positional error. But sometimes the position of the elf is not suitable, and the phenomenon of ganging will appear:
Just appeared on flat ground (left) Elf appeared in unreasonable place (right)
| AR based on image tracking is the current mainstream
Technical Rating: ★★★
The mark-based AR corresponds to a scene or object in a real-world scene with a floor plan or a 3D object as a marker. When the camera scans the "mark", an AR event is triggered and the virtual content is accurately superimposed on the "mark" as a location reference. In the real world.
Simply put, it is to first make a "mark" (marked target) in the real world to summon "elf" (virtual content). In mark-based AR, it is the easiest place to fall, and today's mainstream AR uses a plane pattern as a “markâ€, and for ease of understanding, it abbreviates as an “image ARâ€. At present, AR AR cognitive cards and AR coloring books sold on AR early childhood market are products of image AR.
AR fairy tales book experience map
The sense of integration of the image AR is very strong, and it can bring a magical visual effect on the vivid paper and realize the seamless convergence of the virtual content and the physical image. Many domestic manufacturers have launched their own AR products based on third-party AR underlying technologies such as EasyAR.
Why doesn't Pokemon GO use image AR technology? Isn't it interesting to have the elf drill out of the dollar and jump out of the Coca-Cola bottle? And using image AR will bring more stable integration and will not accidentally wear out. Businesses are also willing to actively participate in and contribute advertising costs.
The image AR uses the image as a "marker." This way, the content can be exactly where it was supposed to be, and the accuracy is much higher than LBS. However, the disadvantage of the image AR is that it requires uploading the “marker†to the server in advance. As a database, it is convenient to search. If there are too many “markers†that need to be marked, the marking work will be very complicated and cumbersome.
Image AR needs a map as a trigger, which is a source of interest, but it is also a limitation. As a game to be released globally, Pokemon GO needs to ensure that everyone can experience the game completely, but to provide players around the world with images that can trigger AR content, it is difficult to imagine. In addition, due to the huge number of elfs, huge amounts of images are needed to trigger thousands of elf items, and the amount of work is extremely large. Moreover, this technology is currently only available to Blippar abroad, and domestic view + AR can do so.
To sum up, the image AR can make the AR appear accurate, and the integration of appearance is more realistic. This makes it easier for AR to combine offline physical products with merchant products. Image-based AR will be an important form of future commercialization of games such as Pokemon GO. Games will be gradually introduced in the future.
| AR based on slam will bring more realistic AR integration experience (4 stars)Technical Rating: ★★★★
Although image AR solves the problem of precise integration, the virtual content must be moved in the real environment, and it must also solve the problem of integration of the overall environment. Image AR technology cannot determine space occlusion, virtual content is always displayed at the front, and elves cannot be obscured by any real-world scene objects:
Can't catch elf in palm
The elf in Pokemon GO is waiting to be arrested after appearing, but does not dare to move around. When the elf walks around, we need to make judgments on the terrain and shields of the entire real space so that the elves can play hide and seek with us. We have to go under the bed to catch the whole behavioral process and the environment. The integration.
This technology for sensing the environment is called SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping), instant positioning and map building technology, or SLAM for short. The 3D space of the real environment can be directly reconstructed in 3D, so that the accurate position and shielding relationship of the virtual content in the environment can be known. Let virtual content be free to "shuttle" in the real environment.
To sum up, if image AR solves the accurate integration of virtual content, then slam is to solve the problem of accurate integration of virtual content in the environment, that is, it can enhance the sense of integration in the game process.
| Able to integrate LBS, Image Tracking, and SLAM into a full experience (5 stars)Ultimate experience: ★★★★★
If you let me make a game that spikes Pokemon GO, such as Transformer GO (Transformers), imagine this picture:
When you are close to Shanghai Oriental Pearl, the radar in the game will alarm (based on LBS), prompting Transformers nearby. When you point your mobile phone at the Oriental Pearl, you see a lightning bolt descending from the sky and accurately injecting into the spire of the Oriental Pearl. The Oriental Pearl's spherical bin became a portal in the thunder and lightning (Image-based AR). The Decepticons fly out of the portal and move freely through the tall buildings. You can also hide behind the World Financial Center and shoot you! (based on SLAM)
This will be an IP theme 5 stars (★★★★★), a gameplay 5 stars (★★★★★), AR technology 5 stars (★★★★★) perfect AR game.
The popularity of Pokemon Go has made domestic developers eager to try. Which development tools can achieve better AR games than Pokemon Go? Like foreign Vuforia and Metaio, domestic EasyAR etc. are also good choices. We are also developing three-in-one 5-star AR technology for game developers, assembling LBS, image AR and SLAM. It is believed that there will soon be more excellent AR games than Pokemon GO.
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