Project Description
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are similar technologies, but have key differences. In VR, everything you see is made up by the computer; in AR, the things you see in your environment are real, but there are also additional computer-generated objects layered into your experience of the real world. The biggest difference between the two is that AR doesn’t completely replace your experience of reality with a virtual one, but instead enhances it (Augments it).
American football uses a computer’s vision to project the virtual first down line onto the field before each play. The line is not actually on the field; you might be familiar with this application. Soccer and football use AR for Video Assistant Referees (VARs) to determine tight offsides calls. Another example of AR is the game Pokémon Go, which shows cute virtual creatures in your house or yard. Lines are drawn on the field to show whether or not a player has crossed the last defender, illegally, on the field.
AR applications use the camera on your mobile phone or other device to show you the real world, and then add virtual objects onto your view. Head Mounted Displays, ‘smart glasses’, bionic contact lenses, and other devices can also use AR, but phones have been the most popular device to use this technology. VR requires headsets to fully support it, while mobile devices can support some aspects of AR. Because of the headsets necessary for VR, AR is less intrusive than . In CALLISTO, we decided to move from VR to AR for better visualization of the data and based on the requirements from the pilot partners.
Countless other examples of AR already exist in many fields. A few selected applications include:
- Online shoppers at some e-commerce sites can use smart devices to project furniture into their home to see how the pieces look before making a purchase.
- Some clothing stores can project clothing onto shoppers’ bodies to check appearance without having to change clothes. These applications require the user to be in a special dressing booth with full body scanning capabilities.
- Urban planners use AR to display how planned buildings, cell towers, wind turbines, and other structures would look in the existing space. Planners can walk the streets and view how proposed projects would alter the existing cityscape.
Figure 1: use of AR to display planned buildings
- AR is used in manufacturing to display operation and safety instructions in a worker’s field of vision using head mounted displays, which circumvents the need to refer to bulky paper manuals.
Figure 2: use of AR in manufacturing
- Utility managers can see underground pipelines, water lines, sewer pipes, electrical lines, and other infrastructure projected below their feet. This video provides a good example on how utility management can be done using AR: AR systems for GIS
In CALLISTO, we use the GIS data to aid in the reconstruction of 3D models and the creation of visualizations into AR. This provides the AR models to be accurately placed around various geographical locations
In general, there are three main uses of GIS in AR:
- Location: Any AR application must know where the user is and where to place virtual objects. In most cases, full GIS capabilities are not needed; instead, the application accesses a GPS (global positioning system) to find locations. Consider the Pokémon Go application mentioned before. The game knows where the various Pokémon need to appear. When a user plays the game, it uses GPS to find the user, and then shows any Pokémon that are near the user based on their locations.
- Layers: An AR application may need to show features that are not visible to the user, such as underground electrical lines, earthquake fault lines, property lines, or planned buildings. All these features can be stored as GIS map layers in the cloud and then displayed in the AR application as virtual overlays projected on the real world. Furthermore, a user could select a displayed item and view related attribute information in the GIS layer. For example, a user could view the condition, age, and repair status of a selected water pipeline.
- Navigation: An AR application may also need to help a user get from point A to point B, for example in a crowded airport or in a large warehouse. Such navigation could be facilitated by showing virtual route markers and arrows on the real world.
In CALLISTO, we tackle 4 major pain points from the pilot partners using AR technology and 3D visualization. The use of AR in CALLISTO is as follows:
- AR will be used to view 3D reconstructed models of various locations on the pilot . For eg, we plan to develop AR view of a city and various layers of the city’s air quality data, which can be integrated into websites to provide an overview of the city.
- AR, will gather information from public web sources and visualize it along with the 3D reconstruction for better understanding and information transition
- AR Application of CALLISTO will allow exports of the 3D models, animations etc, so that they can be integrated into various websites if required by the pilot partners such as DW.
- AR will handle a timeline to display the changes to a land border, algae concentration etc. over a period of time based on the available data
Project Details
- DateAugust 26, 2022
- WriterNurogames GmbH, Cologne Germany
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