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What is Mixed Reality?

by, Hwang Bo-sung, Culture Editor, khby44@mju.ac.kr

Alice chased the rabbit and began to run across the field. This is the very first line of the all-so-renowned story “Alice in Wonderland”. At the time of its first publication, the volume and the length of this book was substantial, but incorporated only a handful of illustrations which were completely black and white. No doubt that the reader’s imagination did all the work as one can get only so much from limited visual aids and monotonous words on paper. 86 years later, in 1951, Disney amended the novel as a full-time animation of 1 hour and 15 minutes. However, there was no room for the audiences to squeeze in as they just gaze upon at the two-dimensional plane and unilaterally enjoy the content that was projected. 67 years later, in 2018, people could experience the story firsthand, witnessing a white rabbit dashing through right in front of their own eyes and trailing the rabbit as it disappears into the deep well cave. Everyone can literally become Alice from the novel. With Mixed Reality (MR), one of the most remarkable technologies in recent years, these interactive stories with users and virtual characters coexisting in the same space can be very well compatible.

Mixed Reality is not something out of thin air, but rather a batter of contemporary technologies, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). AR is an interactive experience of a real world environment whereby the objects that reside in the real world are "augmented" by computer generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities. The overlaid sensory information can be constructive and is seamlessly interwoven with the physical world that it alters one’s ongoing perception of a real world environment, allowing you to create new experiences by stacking virtual content on the real world. In the film “Iron Man,” the screen or display installed in the iron-man suit in which conveys imperative information for fighting the enemy is a practical usage of the AR technology. On the other hand, Virtual Reality (VR) is an interactive computer generated experience taking place within a utterly simulated environment that incorporates mainly auditory and visual, but also other types of sensory feedback, such as haptic. It is to maximize the experience one cannot in the new digital world by doing everything in the virtual space, completely blocked from the real world. However, in order to experience yourself in virtual cyberspace, applying supplementary equipment such as a headset or head-mounted display (HMD) designed to fixate your visionary perception only on VR is a prerequisite factor to take into notice.

MR is a more advanced technology that combines AR and VR. Mixed reality, either as a standalone concept or used to refer to the entire spectrum of situations between actual reality and virtual reality, attempts to combine the best of both virtual reality and augmented reality. When both real and virtual worlds are merged together, new environments and visualizations become possible where physical and digital objects can coexist and interact in real time. In the movie “Kingsman: Golden Circle,” it is thanks to the MR technology that secret agents could congregate in the private office in London even if they are not present physically.

The most significant advantage of VR is that it does not specifically require additional machinery and could exhibit authentic images. In 2016, the mobile game “Pokémon Go,” a game founded on the AR technology. was in the mainstream for all genders and ages around the globe. A virtual two-dimensional Pokémon pops out when you wander around on the real road on your smartphone. However, in the hands of MR, you can experience three-dimensional images with 3D graphics. What is more, unlike VR and AR, you do not need a device like a headset. You can experience it without intermediary medium just like a movie, whereas VR can be experienced solely through a device such as a headset, and AR must have a medium such as a smart phone.

As of today, MR is not yet widely commercialized like VR or AR. This is because the amount of data to process is too massive to handle and there are equipment and technical constraints. For example, in order to use MR in a mobile device, tons of arduous technology are required, including a camera position recognition technology attached to a device, a technology for representing virtual digital information in a real space, an interaction technology for reality mixed with cyberspace to be immersing, and so on.

Nevertheless, MR on a smartphone is not far yet to come. More and more companies are showing huge interests in MR technology and spurring technological development. An automobile company, BMW, intends to introduce MR into the automotive design development process. After generating the automotive development process with MR, designers and engineers will be able to see the final model of their car using a variety of materials before manufacturing the actual automobile. Microsoft has taken MR and made it into a portable device called HoloLens (holographic lens). HoloLens is essentially a holographic computer built into a headset that lets you see, hear, and interact with holograms within an environment such as a living room or an office space. Microsoft has built the headset without the need to be wirelessly connected to a PC, and has used high-definition lenses and spatial sound technology to create that immersive, interactive holographic experience. Magic Leafra corporation has developed MR display technology, Magic Leap. This is a type of glasses which projects 3D computer-generated imagery over real world objects and shows everything as real as the technology of "a projected digital light field into the user's eye", involving technologies potentially suited to applications in augmented reality and computer vision. At present, companies are putting efforts in developing technologies that recognize actual objects such as tables, hands, floors, and ceilings, and can directly process computer graphics (CG) effects. This lets users a step further into experiencing real-like holograms, such as a virtual whale jumping up from the floor of a school gym.

Predictions as to which future “AR”, “VR”, and “MR” brings about are more of an equivocal anticipation, distinguishable but, simultaneously, somewhat corresponding to one another. Although these three reality technologies are closely intertwined, some factors take their tolls as competition is fabricated among these technologies because of their distinctive characteristics and diverse fields. Nonetheless, as we step into the future with more state-of-the-art technologies, neither of them seem to trigger deterioration of one another nor seem to loom each distinctive technology. However, it can be stressed out that as of today, mixed reality is receiving the greatest attention and expecting vast prospect from all over the world.