Augmented reality is an enhanced version of reality created by the use of technology to overlay digital information on an image of something being viewed through a device such as a camera on a smartphone. When the Yelp application overlays restaurant names on top of a smartphone’s street view, that’s augmented reality. On the other hand, virtual reality is an artificial world consisting of images and sounds created by a computer that is affected by the actions of a person experiencing it. Most first-person video games are examples of virtual reality. So unlike augmented reality, in virtual reality, everything is virtual instead of real.
Project Ivy is our research project about a spatially situated visual programming tool that uses immersive virtual reality for the internet of things. As such, Project Ivy allows users to link smart objects, insert logic constructs, and visualize real-time data flows between real-world sensors and actuators.
Project Ivy was recently featured on…