Hey all, just fielded a call from a custy who wants us to print a tee that he's calling augmented reality or digital watermark. It's my understanding that it's an app that you would download on your smart phone and the imprint can be viewed three dimensionally. Can anybody weigh-in on this?
This may help a little...I don't think its special inks.
What is Augmented Reality (AR)?
The vast majority of Americans, when asked what AR is, have no idea what it is or what it means. Most figure that it has do something with technology, but nearly all claim they’ve never seen it. The truth is that most people have seen the technology before, but never knew what they were looking at. If you have ever watched an American football game on TV then you have seen AR. It is the little “yellow line” marking the first down. The truth is that yellow line has evolved greatly since it first showed up on Sunday afternoon telecasts for the National Football League. AR now plays a greater role, further enhancing the viewer experience. Much the same way that AR has expanded its role in the football telecasts, it is now being used to enhance every day products and merchandise.
The technical definition of AR is taking a graphic animated image and placing it on a live video stream. You need 3 things in order to be able to experience AR: a camera, a processor (CPU), and a “trigger.”. The trigger is basically the image that the camera recognizes to launch the AR experience. It can be anything including logos on a flyer to a graphic on a T-shirt (we’ll get into that shortly).
Not so long ago AR was only available by using a home computer and a webcam. This was because of the lack of processing power that cell phones had at the time. However with the development of smarter more powerful phones, AR has become mobile! The proliferation of smartphones has opened the door for the rapid expansion of mobile AR as well as the merging of the technology with everyday items such as T-shirts and other merchandise.
Now an everyday product brings a whole new experience tied to it, adding value to both the product and the customer.