AR has been shown up in a majority of creative coding platform but yet its real life application is limited to a few game and some gadget like promotion campaign. The promised enterprise application such as driving assistance or streamed information on the top of wearable computer haven’t seen any took off due to limited client-side computing power, needs for target tracking or system reliability prone to flicker by noised signal. Microsoft Hololens technology tends to alter these fact and prove that AR is at the door of mass consuming. But yet real life application appear to extend the consumer consumption by adding media to already known GUI, means we are not yet there close to an Ironman-like Man Machine Interface J.A.R.V.I.S.

What we got interested in is not new, but a precise and smart use of AR when it comes to “add” something to a somewhat “limited” reality, thus its name “Augmented Reality”. So let’s focus on where this augmentation would make sense. Despite its entertaining effect we might think of augmentation as a way to correct a diminution. So in real life many professional context are “blind” due to physical constraint and this is where AR give the best of itself.

As an illustration we would like to take the example of a medical explanation and illustration context. Medical data are complex, blind, and difficult to visualise as a 3D structure. Medical staff are using a lot of model of their object, with often model hiding deeper model. Here is where AR can be a solution, models can easily and reliably be marked as AR marker. More, recent face tracking algorithm can even let us think of a real life head tracked and augmented, even without any marker.

An other example of smart use of AR has been done by Samsung Argentina with a road-safe campaign showcasing a solution for deadly truck overtake on busy road. This let us understand where augmentation and decrease of the reality may be understood as a way to deploy media and technology in a somewhat clever use than marketing.