Alright, so the other day I got this wild idea to mess around with augmented reality and golf. Yeah, I know, sounds kinda out there, but stick with me. I’ve always been a bit of a tech nerd, and golf? Well, let’s just say I enjoy the fresh air.
First thing I did was dig out my old AR headset that’s been collecting dust. I charged it up and started looking into what kind of AR apps are out there for golf. It’s pretty slim pickings, to be honest. Most of the stuff is more about virtual reality, putting you in a whole digital world. But I wanted to enhance, not replace, the real world around me while playing, you know?
I found a couple of apps that promised to overlay some useful info on your real-world view, like wind speed and direction. Sounded cool, but I realized my headset wasn’t going to cut it. It’s too bulky and doesn’t really have the processing power to handle what I was envisioning.
So, I started thinking maybe I could try making something myself. I’ve tinkered with some coding before, nothing major, but enough to know the basics. I started with the idea of using my phone’s camera to capture the real world and then use an app to add digital elements on top.
- Searched for open-source AR libraries that I could maybe use.
- Played around with some basic tutorials to get a feel for how to detect surfaces and overlay graphics.
- Started small, just trying to get a digital ball to show up on my phone screen when I pointed it at my real golf ball.
Here’s what I did:
It was way harder than I thought. Getting the digital stuff to stick to the real-world locations was a real pain. The lighting, the angles, everything had to be just right, or else the digital ball would just float off into space. I was spending hours just trying to get it to look somewhat realistic on my phone.
Then I thought, “What if I could use those fancy AR glasses that are starting to come out?” I did some research and realized they’re still pretty expensive and the tech isn’t quite there yet. But I can see it, in like 5 or 10 years, these things are gonna be as common as smartphones, and way more powerful.
So, for now, my augmented reality golf experiment is on hold. I might try to refine my phone app a bit more, see if I can get it to at least show some useful info like a digital rangefinder. But the dream of having real-time, holographic-like data overlaid onto my actual golf game? That’s gonna have to wait for the tech to catch up. It’s cool to think about the possibilities, though. One day, we might all be playing golf with a little digital help from our glasses, and it’s gonna be awesome!
