Presentation by Mark Billinghurst at the 7th International Symposium on the Digital Earth (ISDE7) conference (www.isde7.net), on how Augmented Reality can be used to provide Geospatial Visualization in Place.

1. Geospatial Visualization In Place:
New Opportunities with Augmented Reality
Mark Billinghurst
HIT Lab NZ
University of Canterbury

3. Christchurch Earthquakes

4. Christchurch Before and After

6.  Professional solutions available
 Autodesk REVIST, ESRI ArcGIS, Grass,etc

7. Emerging Novel User Interfaces
 Stereo Visualization
 Multi-touch screens
 Smartphones

8. VisionSpace
Next Generation Immersive Visualization

9. GeoSpatial Data

10. Limitations
 Complex interfaces
 Unintuitive interaction
 2D display for 3D content
 Separation from the real world
 Remote visualization

12. Augmented Reality (Azuma 97)
 Combines Real and Virtual Images
- Both can be seen at the same time
 Interactive in real-time
- The virtual content can be interacted with
 Registered in 3D
- Virtual objects appear fixed in space

13. Augmented Reality Examples
 Put AR pictures here

14. AR and Geospatial Visualization
 Enhanced Maps
 AR overlay on printed material
 Outdoor AR
 In place visualization
 Mobile AR
 Sensor Visualization
 Sensor data shown in place

15. AR Markerless Tracking
 OPIRA Library
 Uses natural features for tracking
 Fast, robust performance

16. Interactive AR Maps
 Markerless tracking
 3D model overlay
 Gesture input

18. Outdoor AR
 Highly accurate outdoor AR
tracking system
 GPS, Inertial, RTK system
 HMD
 First prototype
 Laptop based
 2-3 cm accuracy

19. Image Registration
AR Stakeout Application

21. Mobile AR - Hardware
GPS
Example self-built working
Antenna
solution with PCI-based 3D graphics
PCI 3D Graphics Board
Tracker
Controller
PC104 Sound Card
DC to DC
Wearable
Converter CPU
Computer
PC104 PCMCIA
Battery
GPS RTK Hard Drive
correction
Radio
Serial
Ports
Columbia Touring Machine

22. 2008 - Location Aware Phones
Motorola Droid Nokia Navigator

23. Real World Information Overlay
 Tag real world locations
 GPS + Compass input
 Overlay graphics data on live video
 Applications
 Travel guide, Advertising, etc
 Eg: Mobilizy Wikitude
 Android based, Public API released
 Other companies
 Layar, AcrossAir, Tochnidot, RobotVision, etc

24. Layar – www.layar.com
 iPhone, Android
 > 2 million downloads
 1500+ information layers

27. HIT Lab NZ Outdoor AR Platform
 Cross platform
 Android, iPhone
 3D onsite visualization
 Intuitive user interface
 Positions content in space
 Camera, GPS, compass
 Client/Server software architecture
 Targeting museum guide/outdoor site applications

28. Prototype: Earthquake Reconstruction
 See past, present and future building designs
 Earthquake survivor stories shown on map view
 Collect user comments
 Android platform

29. Client/Server Architecture
Web Interface
Add models
Web application java
and php server
Android
application
Database server
Postgres

30. Hydrosys Project (TU Graz)
 http://www.hydrosysonline.eu/
 Smart Earth visualization
 Sensor network
 Handheld AR display

31. AR View

32. Hydrosys Interface

33. Looking to the Future

34. Research Directions
 User Interface
 Wide Area Tracking
 Information Filtering
 Application Evaluation
 Social Networking

35. AR Navigation
 Many commercial AR browsers
 Information in place
 How to navigate to POI

36. 2D vs. AR Navigation?
VS

37. AR Navigation Study
 Users navigate between Points of Interest
 Three conditions
 AR: Using only an AR view
 2D-map: Using only a top down 2D map view
 AR+2D-map: Using both an AR and 2D map view
 Experiment Measures
 Quantitative
- Time taken, Distance travelled
 Qualitative
- Experimenter observations, Navigation behavior, Interviews
- User surveys, workload (NASA TLX)

38. HIT Lab NZ Test Platform – AR View

39. HIT Lab NZ Platform – Map View

40. Distance and Time
No significant differences

41. Paths Travelled
 Red – AR
 Blue – AR + Map
 Yellow - Map

42. Navigation Behaviour
 Depends on interface
 Map doesn’t show
short cuts

43. Survey Responses

44. User Comments
 AR
 “you don't know exactly where you are all of the time.”
 “using AR I found it difficult to see where I was going”
 Map
 “you were able to get a sense of where you were”
 “you are actually able to see the physical objects around you”
 AR+MAP
 “I used the map at the beginning to understand where the
buildings were and the AR between each point”
 “You can choose a direction with AR and find the shortest way
using the map.”

45. Usability Issues
 Screen readability in sunlight
 GPS inaccuracies
 Compass errors
 Touch screen difficulties
 No routing information

46. Lessons Learned
 User adapt navigation behaviour to guide type
 AR interface shows shortcuts
 Map interface good for planning
 Include map view in AR interface
 2D exocentric, and 3D egocentric
 Allow people to easily change between views
 May use Map far away, AR close
 Difficult to accurately show depth

47. Conclusions
• AR allows for GeoSpatial Visualization in Place
• Hardware and software platforms widely available
• Many possible applications/commercial possibilities
• Important research problems need to be solved
– Wide area tracking
– User experience
– Information presentation/filtering
– Etc..

48. More Information
• Mark Billinghurst
– mark.billinghurst@hitlabnz.org
• Website
– www.hitlabnz.org