Abstract
In order to deliver a foundation for orientation and decisions in the growing field of Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR), this chapter intends to deliver a realistic picture about MAR, where it comes from, where it currently stands, and where it is going. It distinguishes between the variants of MAR, explains their similarities, differences, and different development stages and outlooks. While describing potential application fields and their current limitations, the opportunities and challenges of MAR become obvious, as well as how much work is still to do. The chapter intends to categorize the challenges for MAR, covering also related issues in the mobile hardware, software, and operator industry, and their efforts in standardization and open interfacing. Besides the technology-driven discussion, a strong emphasis will be taken also to the essential aspect of user experience. With ubiquitous MAR, the technology will become more and more secondary, and the user and her individual context moves into the center of attention.
TopBackground
At this early stage of MAR, there are already different approaches, suppliers, technologies, and systems on the market that are forming or at least delivering their part to the growing MAR community. 'Older' players like the German metaio left the research labs and entered the commercial market in 2003 with their PC and camera based AR system “Unifeye” before launching their MAR app “junaio” in 2009. Other players like the Austrian company Mobilizy entered the market right away with their MAR service “Wikitude” in 2008. Some of the other providers and their MAR browsers are listed in Table 1, following Perey (2010).