Augmented Reality Applications

This is an incomplete list of application scenarios in which augmented reality would be useful. Some have been prototyped by the User Interaction and Visualisation group at ECRC.

Mechanical Repair

Scenario: An engineer with some form of trackable, head-mounted display and a see-through visor can proceed with his work while ``seeing'' a continually updated, annotated display which assists him in identifying the components before him and reminds him of the tasks he must perform.

Interior Design and Modeling

Scenario: An interior architect designs, remodels, and visualizes a room, using funiture models from a database that are superimposed on video images of the room.

Computer-Aided Surgery

Scenario: A doctor performs surgery using Augmented Reality tools to see medical image data (including volume rendered versions and computer graphics renderings of physical implants or other devices) visually superimposed on a human subject.

Electric Manufacturing and Diagnostics of Printed Circuit Boards

Scenario: A technician diagnoses what is wrong with a particular printed circuit board (PC board), using Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence technology to analyze the reported symptoms, highlight the detected trouble spots in a video image of the PC board, and overlay relevant information that is pulled out of user manuals.

Apparel Retail

Scenario: A customer shops for clothes, using an augmented reality system to look through an extensive electronic catalogue and electronically ``wear'' selected items to ``see'' how they fit.

Industrial Plant Maintenance

Scenario: Maintenance personnel tries to find a pipe with a certain functionality among the jungle of existing pipes. The technician sees an adjustable video image of the factory floor on a monitor. Functional data (e.g., labels, measurements such as temperature and pressure) are superimposed on the image to help him identify and inspect the correct pipe.

Road Repair and Maintenance

Scenario: A repair crew is about to dig a road and wants to avoid hitting major water pipes. The workers aim a camera to the road and get an image of where the main water pipes under the road are. This is accomplished with the aid of an augmented reality system which uses a GPS system and a database of the water pipes in the city.

More Augmented Reality Applications

The remnants of ECRC's User Interaction and Visualization group continues as the augmented reality project group of the Fraunhofer Institute for visualization and virtual reality. And they have some new results! A number of MPEG video clips are given that demonstrate some of the application concepts. Here is a set of links to their video clips:

  • Visualize Electric Wires in a Wall (257K, MPEG movie).
  • Visualize the Current Temperature of Heating Pipes (333K, MPEG movie).
  • See inside cabinets (350K, MPEG movie)
  • See fire escape route on the floor added to the scene (350K, MPEG movie).
  • Visualize a planned new room divider wall (256K, MPEG movie).

    • Modified from an ECRC Web page by Mihran Tuceryan.
    Last Modified on Monday, March 05, 2007 .