Augmented reality is a technology that combines physical and digital world. The
said technology is attracting the attention of academia and industry in the last decade,
mainly due to the experience of the augmented reality becoming possible via mobile
devices. Users of mobile devices can use many native augmented reality applications
with a wide variety of applicability, and thus offering satisfactory quality of experience
and user experience. However, such native applications require download and
installation. As an alternative to such applications are web applications, which are
easier to develop, maintain and distribute, unlike the native applications. This
dissertation will present tracking mechanisms, key web technologies and various
approaches to web augmented reality. The practical element consists of developing
two web applications. The first application renders the 3D object over a detected
marker by accessing the AR.js library. The second application, developed with the use
of WebXR API, scans the physical surface, using complex algorithms, and then
renders the 3D object above the detected surface when the screen is tapped. The two
applications have been evaluated with running them on different devices and different
browsers. In addition, the impact of the resolution of the model and other components
on the speed of the application performance has been researched. The results show that
the augmented reality web applications are still in their infancy and facing many
obstacles and challenges. Nevertheless, the development of new web technologies,
such as 5G network and multi-accessible edge computing, may very well represent the
future alternative to already established native applications.
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