Nearly every conversation about this starts with the technology, and that gets nowhere. The useful question is a different one: can the user physically stand in front of the thing you want to show them? The answer follows from that almost every time.
Virtual reality: when the place isn’t available
Virtual reality replaces the whole environment. The user puts on a headset and stops seeing what is around them. It is the right call when the thing to be shown cannot be visited: because it no longer exists, because it hasn’t been built yet, because it is far away, because entering damages it, or because being there is dangerous.
A ruined monument belongs here. So does a home that is still a drawing. So does an industrial manoeuvre that cannot be rehearsed with the machine running.
Augmented reality: when the object is right there
Augmented reality replaces nothing: it adds. The user still sees the real world — usually through a phone camera — with 3D content laid over it. It is the right call when the object is there and what is missing is information about it: how it used to look, what is inside it, how it goes together, what that sofa would look like in that living room.
It carries a logistical advantage that counts for a lot: nobody has to be equipped. The user has the device in their pocket. That changes the reach of a campaign, or of signage, completely.
In one line
- The place can’t be visited? → virtual reality.
- The object is right there and information is missing? → augmented reality.
- The place exists, can be filmed, and just has to be shown remotely? → 360º video, which is faster and cheaper than modelling it.
That third option gets confused with the first all the time. The difference between filming a space in 360º and building it in 3D is not one of quality but of kind: one can be walked through freely, the other is looked at from wherever the camera stood. We go into it in what the difference is between virtual reality and 360º video.
Where they live together
They are not mutually exclusive, and the same 3D model usually serves both. An archaeological site can have a virtual reconstruction for its interpretation centre and an augmented layer on the ground, both resting on the same modelling work. Real estate is the same: a virtual walkthrough of the development off-plan, and augmented reality to try finishes in the home once it is built.
If you are not sure which one fits, you don’t have to be the one to decide. Tell us what you want to achieve and who for, and we’ll tell you which of the three — or none of them — is the right tool.