There are companies that have been doing this for a while.
Can you provide links? I'd like to see what they're up to.
I think you are slightly overestimating the capabilities of the technology,
No. I know how janky smartphone GPS is from personal experience, especially inside a structure. Big companies with deep pockets are working on Vernor Vinge's "localizers," however.
but largely overestimating the demand for this stuff over the way things are traditionally designed/built/inspected. It's not a killer use case that is forcing architecture/design/manufacturing firms to adopt the tech or die...it's currently still in gimmick stage, but is getting better slowly but surely
As you are implying, the demand is closely related to the jankyness event horizon. It's just like smartphones and tablets. They existed many years before the iPhone and iPad. However, prior to the iPhone and iPad, only propeller-heads wanted those things. There's a point at which the technology has matured to the point where it doesn't get in the way and it's actually nice to use. At that point, it will explode.
Check this out if you're in the boston area, I've been to a few AR-focused meetups and they're pretty good at surfacing what is out there and state of the art: https://www.meetup.com/BostonAR/events/255921064/
(and/or email the organizer to get slides/company names if you're not in boston)
One of the apps mentioned there, Pair, is run by Andrew Kemendo who is an active participant on HN, started his first AR company in the space in 2011 and is very knowledgeable, check his stuff out: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=AndrewKemendo
In the engineering space PTC/Microsoft (Vuforia/Hololens) and UpSkill (founded 2010) jump out in my mind as leaders. PTC has been doing CAD modeling and full PML/ALM tooling etc. forever and started to look at AR applications in the 2013/2014 timeframe to build on their modeling, maintenance, and workflow tracking expertise
A common thread is that many of these companies were founded in 2010/2011 and have rebranded around the 2015 timeframe to focus on different business problems and market their solution as "AR"
And yeah I agree, I think the jankiness of the hardware is still a huge sticking point, nobody has nailed the comfortable glasses form factor with enough POV/battery/processing power to really make AR take off
Can you provide links? I'd like to see what they're up to.
I think you are slightly overestimating the capabilities of the technology,
No. I know how janky smartphone GPS is from personal experience, especially inside a structure. Big companies with deep pockets are working on Vernor Vinge's "localizers," however.
but largely overestimating the demand for this stuff over the way things are traditionally designed/built/inspected. It's not a killer use case that is forcing architecture/design/manufacturing firms to adopt the tech or die...it's currently still in gimmick stage, but is getting better slowly but surely
As you are implying, the demand is closely related to the jankyness event horizon. It's just like smartphones and tablets. They existed many years before the iPhone and iPad. However, prior to the iPhone and iPad, only propeller-heads wanted those things. There's a point at which the technology has matured to the point where it doesn't get in the way and it's actually nice to use. At that point, it will explode.