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When “augmented reality” (AR) is mentioned, a lot of people still think of Tony Stark swiping through virtual blueprints inIron Man, and now, Pokémon Go. Yes, that’s Hollywood and gaming, but AR is already being used today to transform enterprises across the world. However, is what you know about AR really true?
为了找出答案，让我们探索与AR技术相关的11个最常见的神话。
1. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are the same thing.
Though related, AR and VR are completely different experiences. AR aims to enhance a user’s real-world experience by placing new content within that real-world experience. VR, on the other hand, completely obscures one’s vision (and often their hearing), immersing the user in an entirely new environment.
About the only thing similar between AR and VR is that both enhance a user’s experience with 3D content. The applicable use cases, technologies, and challenges are vastly different.
例如，AR和VR体验是相当对比的。VR需要专用的耳机，例如Oculus Rift或HTC Vive，由于计算要求，必须将其束缚在功能强大的计算机上。由于移动性是有限的，并且用户的视力被遮盖了，因此用户通常仅限于单个预映射房间，以避免撞向事物。
基于“增大化现实”技术,内容覆盖用户的real-world experience, allowing users to walk around their entire environment with no restrictions. AR can also be experienced in a variety of ways, whether with head-worn devices, such as the ODG R7 or Microsoft HoloLens, or in a simplified fashion, such as on a phone or tablet(Fig. 1).
2. AR is limited to kitschy marketing/games like Pokémon Go.
Absolutely not! Although we’ve seen some interesting AR experiences in marketing and gaming, AR’s true potential lies in the enterprise. AR is being successfully applied in a variety of heavy industries, including manufacturing, mining, oil and gas, automotive, field service, and construction.
For a real-life example, check out the video below, which shows howScope AR与洛杉矶石膏板公司Martin Bros.合作，利用Scope AR的技术和HoloLens在不使用计划或文件的情况下为增强现实的房间建造框架，以建造一个房间：
Additional compelling use cases include inspection and quality assurance, where you can overlay planned models over the as-built end product, which can easily highlight differences visually.
In fact, AR is nothing short of a new way to interact with the power of computing. It will provide the ability to visualize data in ways never before seen, and provide contextually aware information in a convenient and consumable format. Imagine visualizing intuitive visual instructions to show someone how to change the oil in their car, or see the temperature gradient in an engine’s radiator, or visually see the wear-and-tear on a tire. AR will make all of these things possible.
3. AR is like Iron Man or the Terminator.
Hollywood is often at the forefront of imaging technologies that aren’t yet invented. In fact, tablet-like devices were very common inStar Trek, and they even envisioned Google Glass-like AR devices in a few episodes. Similarly, the Terminator experienced reality through a very AR-like heads-up display, and Tony Stark was able to visualize data in 3D in AR in a similar way(Fig. 2).
这些电影对AR的正确了解是，它们描绘了用户界面，换句话说，我们作为人类与机器和数据互动的方式。最后，这就是增强现实的目的：以与典型的二维体验相比，以凡人更自然的方式呈现信息。这就是AR令人兴奋的原因……这是用于人机计算的新范式。
For the past 30 or so years, we’ve been able to harness the power of computers to do some amazing things, e.g., e-commerce, social media, analytics, democratization of information, etc. But a large segment of the population has largely been left out of this revolution, and that’s the people who work with their hands and their eyes every day. AR has the potential to allow these workers to have the same power applied to revolutionize their industries, and that’s an amazing opportunity.
4. It’s not useful.
许多人只通过愚蠢的游戏或广告暴露于AR。因此，许多人认为AR没有用，只能用于俗气的可视化目的。
On the contrary, AR is incredibly useful. The aforementioned “new user interface” technology will allow people to visualize and interact with data like they never have before. From AR education and training to maintenance instructions, to real-time collaborative field service, to quality assurance, to inspections, to architectural previsualization, to construction guidance—the number of use cases where augmented reality is being applied is staggering. And, AR tools can automatically collect data and provide actionable insights, resulting in improved comprehension, efficiency, and knowledge retention for enterprises.
例如，查看下面的视频（来源：百事可乐麦克斯），百事可乐麦克斯在伦敦新牛津街的公共汽车庇护所中，以“令人难以置信的”增强现实体验使通勤者感到惊讶：
5. AR is hard to make/expensive.
It’s true that a few years ago, creating AR experiences was difficult and time-consuming, and the experiences were usually built as one-offs and weren’t scalable. But just as the mobile-app economy exploded, once developers had a template to code and develop their own apps, the same is now true for AR.
New platforms are allowing for the same templated, simplistic development for smart instruction AR tools. Thus, any organization can harness the power of AR through a simple drag-and-drop feature with no coding required. In addition, hardware manufacturers are improving the core technologies within mobile devices that drive AR, helping drive its proliferation.
6. It’s a gimmick; it’s not real.
For a long time, AR had a bad reputation for being exaggerated, and many companies released slickly produced videos showing what was “possible” with AR, when in fact these videos weren’t real at all. Case in point, this BMW video (source: V431) from a few years back got a lot of people excited about what was “possible”:
从那时起，我们已经走了很长一段路，而AR的体验比杂志广告更具发展和有用。
8. Only big companies can do it.
Prior to the democratization of AR-creation technologies, AR was time-consuming and expensive (see Myth #5 above), leaving it to the domain of the giant companies like Boeing and BMW. However, these days, with tools that allow for rapid content creation, AR is being used by companies of all sizes for things like AR-enabled remote assistance, or simple installation and assembly instructions.
Among the examples are a small company that manufactures radiators uses AR to deliver final assembly and installation instructions to customers (reducing onsite errors and support calls); a small oilfield operator employs AR for training on proper maintenance techniques; and a small construction contractor uses it for guidance in framing. These small companies are realizing huge gains in productivity and efficiency in their operations, which is particularly critical in small- and medium-sized operations.
9.尚未为主流观众做好准备。
Pokémon Go, although basic, certainly got the attention of the mainstream public. However, what it really did was open the world’s eyes to the potential that this technology could have for the future. This year has, in my opinion, been an inflection point as far as advances in hardware and wider-spread acceptance are concerned. We’re seeing major players investing billions of dollars into the space and real, usable apps getting penetration, all of which are good indicators that AR is on the move toward mainstream.
10. It’s not ready for prime time.
Although it might be a few years before becoming commonplace, AR tools are ready to deploy today and are already being used to solve a wide array of problems. In addition to the use cases mentioned above, there are literally dozens more use cases that are starting to deploy AR: IoT-enabled data visualization and intelligent work instruction guidance, AR-enabled remote collaboration, real-time manufacturing work instructions, and inspection overlays, to name a few.
每个公司的CIO都应寻求一项综合策略，以将AR纳入公司的计划。今天采用这些技术的公司将比竞争对手的竞争对手具有重大优势。
11. You need AR glasses.
尽管远程和现场工作人员希望获得免提体验，但在平板电脑和电话上部署解决方案是完全可行的。Scope AR的产品（远程AR）正在被成千上万的工人使用，以提高生产率，其中大多数是在手机和平板电脑上。随着更好的硬件即将到来，并以较低的价格进入，AR眼镜一定会在短时间内在企业中取得进展。至于消费者，在Google Glass崩溃之后，可能不会很快。
