GrainsWest Fall 2019

Tech 2019 Grains West 24 FEATURE F YOUWITNESSEDDIGITAL numerals hovering above the hills and ravines of your cropland, you might swear off beer. But with the aid of augmented reality (AR) viewing gear, this is the intoxicating potential future of precision ag. Using AR equipment is like being inside a combination live-action movie and video game. This technology layers computer-generated enhancements atop a physical environment that allows the user to interact with the system. For farmers, that environment is the farm, and the enhancements are those hovering numbers that represent input volumes and other production data. Such systems will potentially allow farmers to better manage and apply data for bottom-line benefits. “AR literally augments your physical world,” said Matt Wright, chief experience officer and founder of MAMMOTH XR, a Calgary company with expertise in AR and virtual reality (VR) content creation. “If you’re looking at a crop of canola using special AR glasses or another device, you can have numbers popping up in your field of view indicating that the area is a dead zone where you shouldn’t bother adding product, or that this portion of the crop needs certain treatments to thrive.” Where AR users experience supplementary components blended with reality, in VR the user is isolated from the real world and fully immersed in the virtual one. A person can explore and interact with a three-dimensional, computer generated environment with VR, performing actions or manipulating objects as they go. While VR has its place, the AR applications are especially relevant to farming. The potential information garnered through AR is seemingly endless: images of last year’s crop for comparison purposes, rates and locations of past applications, weed and pest identification, herbicide selection and more. “Augmented reality comes down to reducing inputs and enhancing I AR GETS REAL Augmented reality no longer a fantasy for farmers DATA CULTIVATION PHOTOS COURTESY OF LETHBRIDGE COLLEGE Students at Lethbridge College experiencing AR on the HTC VIVE Virtual Reality System.