What is the difference between AR and VR?

Recently many talks have been going on with regards to Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) and in some cases the two tend to get confused with one another. In true fact, the two can be distinguished fairly easily.

Augmented Reality

AR it a computer generated layer that is virtually added onto an actual existing shape or layer. A few mobile apps have been created that has made use of AR, such as a well known translating app, star gazing app and not to mention the extremely popular Pokèmon Go that had the world searching for Pokèmon in all strange places.

There are many different uses for these AR apps on smartphones, ranging from gaming to actually help out in real life situations. Some companies have an app that shows how their furniture would look in a certain space in your home. Other companies have an app that shows how their paint will look on your walls.

So seemingly, AR apps are not only to make gaming more fun and realistic, it can help businesses market their products much more affectively.

Virtual Reality

VR on the other hand is a virtual world created completely my computers and cameras. It is currently most popular with headset like the Samsung Galaxy VR and the Facebook Oculus. It is highly used in the Video and Computer Gaming Industry and 3D Movies. The same as AR, VR is not only used for entertainment purposes. It is also very much used in cases of certain forms of training and ways to help individuals struggling to cope with anxiety of some sort.

In the case where an apps is made for VR, you need to wear one of the headsets to fully enjoy the app for what it is worth. Should you not have the headset, you only see two versions of a video from different angles.

At the current point in time, VR is mainly used with the headsets that are put on our heads in order to get the effect of being in a completely different world, separated from the world around us. AR on the other hand is a computer generated layer that is displayed on a layer, surface or object of the actual world around us.

So VR puts us in our own world separated from the world around us, as where AR brings a new world into the actual world that we live in.