Taking this on board I began to look at the various areas I had researched and analyze them on there merits. To begin with I compared Virtual Reality (immersive environments e.g. gaming) to Augmented Reality. In order to distinguish which technology would be the most practical as a future technology and also best suited for the Lens display.
Virtual Reality(VR) versus Augmented Reality(AR)
In Virtual Reality systems the external world is completely blocked out with the user being presented with an environment that is under complete control of the computer. The user is completely immersed in an artificial world and becomes divorced from there real environment. (http://www.se.rit.edu/~jrv/research/ar/introduction.html) They are at the mercy of the computer living in a kind of virtual prison with rules that cannot be broken.
In some cases the user might become addicted to this virtual world preferring to live in this environment. Could this be considered healthy living in a computer generated environment? Your real world identity lost instead replaced by this user desired virtual one.
In contrast, an Augmented Reality system is augmenting the real world scene necessitating that the user maintains a sense of presence in that world. This is a lot healthier, as you do not loose your sense of identity. (http://www.se.rit.edu/~jrv/research/ar/introduction.html)
Virtual Reality systems while being extremely expensive will also require a lot of supplementary technology to be fully functional, such as complete user interactivity and mobility. This looks from research to be a lot further into the future then augmented reality technology.
It is for these reasons I have decided to develop my concept with Augmented Reality in mind as it is more feasible for this futures brief.
Augmented Reality: Medicine
It became very apparent to me what area I should concentrate on once I decided not to go down the obvious road of immersive gamming (virtual reality). The Medical field is viewed by most as one of the more important for augmented reality systems because many applications throughout depend chiefly on image technology.
With the majority of surgery’s being image guided surgery pre-op images such as CT or MRI scans offer a surgeon a necessary internal view of a patient. The operation is then planned using these visuals. With the use of Augmented Reality these 3 dimensional scans could be directly superimposed on the anatomy of the patient while the operation is in progress when viewed through the lenses. Having these visuals superimposed onto the patient will enhance the performance of a surgical team and eliminate painful stereotatic frames currently being used. (http://www.se.rit.edu/~jrv/research/ar/introduction.html)
Below is a sketch detailing how this 3D MRI image might look seperimposed on a patient.
Another area which will use this technology will be ultra sound imaging. Using the display a doctor would view a 3 dimensional image of a fetus superimposed on the abdomen of a pregnant women. (http://www.se.rit.edu/~jrv/research/ar/introduction.html)
1 comment:
Good to see you proceeding in a methodical way, looking at what you need to do to distil out what is most interesting for you and in keeping with the brief. I’m glad too to see material dealing with the wider meanings of the technological developments you are playing with. Having read your latest entries I would if I were you most certainly get to Lisa Barnard’s show in Lewis. It’s all about emersion, the use of gaming for ostensibly medical purposes (as a ‘cure’ for post traumatic stress disorder for instance), and while the work is by an artist and observational it also points to the ominous characteristics of virtual worlds. Good idea to get your hands on the Photoworks document produced for the Biennial.
Secondly, following our conversation, I think it would be useful for you to sign up to Flash Brighton but lets discuss this if you feel it would hinder your work on other fronts.
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