Creating Augmented and Virtual Realities: Theory and Practice for Next-Generation Spatial Computing

As someone who's immersed in the latest news about the field, this book didn't really provide much value. However, I do think that it's a great middle-tier read for people who are familiar with the field, but don't know much. It also has a few typos.

Know what you're getting

I have long been interested in learning about Augmented and Virtual Reality. This anthology is not a "how to code a specific VR game"; This book has contributions from a wide range of authors, covers breadth within the spatial computing world. Several chapters include a history lesson of the specific technology to help provide context for the reader. I found it interesting that several authors also mentioned the changing technology for spatial computing meant that their references may be "outdated" in a couple of years as the technology changed by leaps and bounds. My favorite section of the book was Part 4 : Creating cross-platform augmented reality and virtual reality written by Steve Lukas, which gave a clear practical reasoning why learning & developing cross-platform now will help future proof work as technology evolves. I also appreciated the different use cases presented in the book that show the range beyond just VR games. I will continue to dip into the book as I continue to learn about the space.

Augmented Reality is not a new paradigm. Due to the huge technology innovation in recent years including both software and hardware it’s getting its renesanse though. It’s clear we are finally able to take practical advantage of Augmented Reality in many segments of the our lives."Creating Augmented and Virtual Realities" is a comprehensive introduction into the world of extending our senses with technology. It has very clear structure. Divided into 3 parts covers various topics around both art/design and practical applications with solid technical foundation. History of Human-Computer-Interface helps to understand routs many solutions and patters the we have access to nowadays. It’s also showing the direction of making augmented reality our next generation interface, that will be mych more accessible and natural for human.As an engineer I really enjoyed chapters III and IV that are much more technical. Authors explain concepts like SLAM or AR Cloud and provide clear guidance for developer where to start the journey and what platforms (ARKit, ARCore, Vuforia etc.) and technologies we should get familiar with. Chapter V is covering Data Visualization and importance of elements like Artificatial Intelligence and Machine Learning in building AR experiences. Tons of examples make a great job - it would be hard to understand some concepts without them. Code samples in technical parts are very helpful too.Overall books is very comprehensive and complete source of knowledge abut Augmented Reality and Spatial Computing. It is not regular technical book but goes far beyond helping us understand social and psychological challenges standing ahed of us. Number of sample applications presented in the book in various areas like medical, administration or training are giving us a chance to understand how concepts/techs we are reading about help solve real life problems. I really appreciate authors underline importance of diversity in the field even showing some practical advantages.

This anthology of essays is especially useful to providing an overview of the current state of virtual reality and augmented reality technology. It is not a textbook, or how-to-code-an-app with ARKit type of book. Instead it collects a set of essays that provide different perspectives on the current state of the field. It looks forward to a time when VR/AR is part of the standard UX much as the mouse is today. For developers wanting an executive summary of the state of the field in 2019, this book could be for you.

I’m a geek girl at heart who has always dreamed of a reality portrayed in our favorite science fiction novels of the past. As I have only recently in the last few years been able to dig deep into AR / VR & Mixed Reality space and follow along with it, I will say that I really loved reading this book. It covers a large amount of ground that took me forever to dig out and research on my own. I think that the book is a wonderful beginning and intermediate overview of the varied products, history, technologies and items that have helped create this growing space in this growing corner of the tech industry landscape.The fun thing is, that no one really knows what will happen just yet as what we are using is still working itself out and evolving from year to year. It's been an eye opening read for me to see what I have already missed out on, as I thought I was watching grow from afar. I instead wished that we had something like this years ago as there is just so many different areas to focus on now.This giant space that covers so many different technologies that are not related to each other until you add in the mixed reality name. For me, How do you prepare for this evolving area that builds on top of multiple different unrelated areas in tech? In the past, I was tossing back and forth if I wanted to jump in and focus completely on this space. If I could have read this book back then, then I would have gone all in instead of waiting for now.

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I usually don't write reviews, but I thought maybe this can help the people like me, who want to start developing AR/VR solutions. The book indeed covers lots of concepts and challenges in this field, but it lacks a uniform structure among the chapters/parts. Apparently, each part is written by an author and each has their own way of story telling. Even each of them have their own references and glossary at the end of the chapter! I'm surprised how O'reilly publishes such a thing as a book.Don't get me wrong, each chapter can be very useful (in a very high level though). But they don't like a book. If I wanted to read a bunch of non-cohesive articles, I could do it in different blogs/websites.That one aside, the book lacks low level details in developing AR/VR. I know it's impossible due to variety of frameworks, each working on specific hardware, but in my opinion, it didn't have to be totally generic. If I could see how building an AR app with ARKit works (or ARCore, or whatever else), I could get some ideas even if I wanted to work with other tools.In general, I don't recommend the book, unless you're exactly looking for a collection of high level articles.