A Platform for location based Augmented

Reality Applications

ADITYA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOHY AND MANAGEMENT

…..PRESENTED BY…..

S. Sai Sateesh, [Link],

III/IV [Link] (E.C.E), III/IV [Link] (E.C.E),
AITAM, Tekkali. AITAM, Tekkali.
sateesh.4a1@[Link] ngrreddy@[Link]
Abstract: computers in a natural way. Mobilizing

Augmented Reality (AR), enhancing a such an interface by deploying wearable

user’s perception of the real world with computers is a logical extension as the

computer generated entities, and mobile body of related research shows.

computing, allowing users to access and Wearable computing allows the user to
manipulate in-formation anytime and access resources at any location and at any
independent of location, are two emerging time. AR is often used as an user interface
user interface technologies that show great technique in wearable computing because
promise. The combination of both into a it provides an information space which is
single system makes the power of continuously and transparently accessible .
computer enhanced interaction and Information can be accessed hands-free,
communication in the real world and the user’s view of the real-world is not
accessible anytime and everywhere. This interrupted, a requirement for continuous
paper describes our work to build a mobile use.
Augmented Reality system that supports
If these technologies are combined with
true stereoscopic 3D graphics, a pen and
position tracking, location aware
pad inter-face and direct interaction with
applications are possible. The computer
virtual objects. The system is assembled
transparently changes its behavior based
from off-the-shelf hardware components
on the environment without the user’s
and serves as a basic test bed for user
intervention. An impressive demonstrator
interface experiments related to computer
for mobile location aware AR using both a
supported collaborative work in
head-mounted and a hand-held display is
Augmented Reality. It also describes some
Columbia’s Touring Machine [3] which
applications we are developing in the area
was used to create a campus information
of location based computing.
system and situated documentaries [4].

Introduction and related work :

Augmented Reality (AR), annotating the
real world with computer generated
entities, is a powerful user interface
paradigm allowing users to interact with The mobile AR setup :
While the computational power for
stereoscopic rendering and computer
vision is becoming available in mobile
computer systems, the size and weight of
such systems is still not optimal.
Nevertheless, our setup is solely build
from off-the-shelf hardware components to
avoid the effort and time required for
building our own. On one hand this allows
us to quickly upgrade old devices or add
new ones and to change the configuration
easily. On the other hand we do not obtain
the smallest and lightest system possible.

Hardware :
The most powerful portable graphics its pen. Both devices are optically tracked

solution available currently is a PC by the camera using markers. The 2D

notebook equipped with a NVidia position of the pen (provided by the

GeForce2Go video chip. The device has a Wacom tablet) is incorporated into the

1GHZ processor and runs under Windows processing to provide more accurate
tracking on the pad itself. Figure 1 gives
an overview of the setup.
2000. We also added a wireless LAN
network adapter to the note-book to enable
communication with our stationary setup User interface management
or a future second mobile unit. It is carried software :
by the user in a backpack.
As our software platform we use
As an output device, we use an i-glasses
Studierstube 2.1 [5], a user interface
see-through stereoscopic color HMD. The
management system for AR based on but
display is fixed to a helmet worn by the
not limited to stereoscopic 3D graphics. It
user. Moreover, an InterSense InterTrax2
provides a multi-user, multi-application
orientation sensor and a web camera for
environment, and supports a variety of
fiducial tracking of interaction props are
display devices including stereoscopic
mounted on the helmet.
HMDs. It also provides the means of
6DOF interaction, either with virtual
The main user interface is a pen and pad objects or with user interface elements
setup using a Wacom graphics tablet and registered with and displayed on the pad.
Applications are implemented as runtime
loadable objects executing in designated Figure 2. A user interacting with the
volumetric containers, a kind of 3D paint application . The view of the user.
window equivalent. While the original
stationary Studierstube environment
Our user interface management system is
allowed a user to arrange multiple
also capable of managing multiple locales,
application in a stationary work-space, our
which can contain any number of
mobile setup with body-stabilized display
graphical objects. Locales are important
allows to arrange 3D information in a
for multi-user or multi-display operation.
wearable workspace that travels along with
For example, each mobile user will require
a user. Applications stay where they are
a separate wear-able workspace that
put relative to the user, and can easily be
defines a distinct locale (coordinate
accessed anytime, aided by proprioception
system). As one user moves about, a
and spatial memory. Figure 2 shows a
second user’s locale will be unaffected, but
simple painting application.
the second user will be able to see
movement of the graphical objects
contained in the first user’s locale. For
effective collaboration, it will in most
cases be necessary to add a third stationary
locale that contains graphical applications
that both users should work with.

Tracking :
Mobile AR requires significantly more A similar technique is used to track the
complex tracking than a traditional VR user’s position within the environment.
application. In a typical VR or AR Our laboratory and neighboring rooms are
application tracking data passes through a rigged with larger markers along the walls.
series of steps. It is generated by tracking The locations of these markers are
hardware, read by device drivers, measured and incorporated in a model of
transformed to fit the requirements of the the building. Together with the tracking
application and send over network information delivered by the fiducial
connections to other hosts. These tasks are tracking the system computes the users
handled by a library called OpenTracker position within these rooms from the
[6], an open software architecture for the detected markers.
different tasks involved in tracking input
Location based AR applications :
devices and processing multimodal input
data. Building on the mobile platform described
above we are currently developing a
The main concept behind OpenTracker is number of prototype location based
to break up the whole data manipulation Augmented Reality applications. These
into these individual steps and build a data applications are based on the location
flow network of the transformations. The tracking described in the last section.
framework's design is based on XML,
A simple location based application is the
taking full advantage of this new
AR library. It performs two basic tasks :
technology by allowing the use of standard
Firstly, it shows a user the location of a
XML tools for development, configuration
requested book in the vast bookshelves of
and documentation.
a library. And secondly, it recognizes
OpenTracker uses a vision tracking library books when the user looks at them and
called ARToolkit [7] to implement the again displays the correct location of the
tracking of the fiducial markers on the book in the library shelves.
interaction props. It analyses the video
A bookshelf was fit out with fiducial
images delivered by the web camera
markers used for tracking. Then the
mounted to the helmet and establishes the
bookshelf’s position can be computed by
position of the pen and pad relative to the
the tracking library. Dedicated books were
users head.
rigged as well with these markers, so that
the system recognizes such a book when
Location tracking : the user is looking at it. In the prototype
application, the markers are attached to the Figure 3. The correct location of a
wall instead of a real shelf. Figure 3 shows detected book is displayed. A selected
both modes. book is shown in the shelf.

Another typical scenario for mobile AR

systems is a way finding application. The
aim is to guide a user along a path to a
selected destination. This is accomplished
using two means: a world in miniature
model of the environment with the users
location and pathhighlighted and
augmenting the user’s view with
navigation guides such as arrows, high-
lighted doors and lines along the desired
path.

Such an application requires a model of

the environment as well as a means to
track the user’s location within the
environment. As described above we
prepared the environment to allow the
system to compute this. For each room a
set of markers was set up and their
locations measured. The tracking can now
establish the user’s location and the
direction she is looking in. Thus the
system can continuously display
navigation information registered to the
real world.

In the application itself the user is

presented with a miniature model of the
environment on the tablet. The user’s
location and current room are highlighted.
She can select a destination by clicking
into the room she wants to go to. Then the
system computes the shortest path to this References:
room and highlights the rooms she needs
 Azuma R.: A Survey of Augmented
to cross. Additionally the doors that she
Reality. pp. 355-385, August 1997.
needs to take are augmented in the user’s
 Starner T., S. Mann, B. Rhodes, J.
view to guide her along the path to the
Levine, J. Healey, D. Kirsch, R.
destination.
Picard, Presence, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp.
386-398, August 1997.
Future work :
The prototype applications are not finished
yet. We plan to augment a real library and
test the application within this real
environment. The way finding application
will be ex-tended to encompass a part of
our building to allow the user to roam in a
larger environment. The integration of
both applications is straightforward
because of the multi application features of
the Studierstube system. This will allow
the user to find her way to the library and
then use the library application in place.

Conclusion:
This paper describes our work to develop a
mobile AR platform that allows location-
based computing. While most related work
focuses on providing information as text or
2D overlays, we concentrate on 3D
information that the user can interact with.
First we describe the mobile setup itself
consisting of the hardware used and the
software system developed. Then we
describe two prototype applications we are
currently developing to demonstrate the
abilities of the platform.