Augmented Reality Techniques Research Articles

Real-Time Visualization System of Magnetic Field Utilizing Augmented Reality Technology for Education

In electromagnetics education, it is important for beginners, who start to learn electromagnetics, to give an illustration of magnetic field. In this paper we propose a new real-time visualization system. It can visualize a composite image of source materials and their generated magnetic field utilizing the Augmented Reality technique to the users. With this real-time visualization system, electromagnetics learners can observe the visualized magnetic field as a realistic magnetic distribution on real-time and the visualized field changes immediately they move the objects.

Integrating geographical information and augmented reality techniques for mobile escape guidelines on nuclear accident sites

During nuclear accidents, when radioactive materials spread into the environment, the people in the affected areas should evacuate immediately. However, few information systems are available regarding escape guidelines for nuclear accidents. Therefore, this study constructs escape guidelines on mobile phones. This application is called Mobile Escape Guidelines (MEG) and adopts two techniques. One technique is the geographical information that offers multiple representations; the other is the augmented reality that provides semi-realistic information services. When this study tested the mobile escape guidelines, the results showed that this application was capable of identifying the correct locations of users, showing the escape routes, filtering geographical layers, and rapidly generating the relief reports. Users could evacuate from nuclear accident sites easily, even without relief personnel, since using slim devices to access the mobile escape guidelines is convenient. Overall, this study is a useful reference for a nuclear accident emergency response.

Non-Marker based Mobile Augmented Reality and its Applications using Object Recognition

As the augmented reality technology has become more pervasive and ap- plicable, it is easily seen in our daily lives regardless of fields and scopes. Existing camera vision based augmented reality techniques depend on marker based approaches rather than real world information. The augmented reality technology using marker recognition has limitations in its applicability and provision of proper environment to guarantee user's immersiveness to relevant service application programs. This study aims to implement a smart mobile terminal based augmented reality technology by using a camera built in a terminal device and image and video processing technology without any markers so that users can recognize multimedia objects from real world images and build an augmented reality service, where 3D content connected to objects and relevant information are added to the real world image. Object recognition from a real world image is involved in a process of comparison against preregistered reference information, where operation to measure similarity is reduced for faster running of the application, considering the characteristics of smart mobile devices. Furthermore, the design allows users to interact through touch events on the smart device after 3D content is output onto the terminal screen. Afterward, users can browse object related information on the web. The augmented reality technology appropriate for the smart mobile environment is proposed and tested through several experiments and showed reliable performances in the results.

Augmented reality applications in design and manufacturing

This paper reviews the research and development of augmented reality (AR) applications in design and manufacturing. It consists of seven main sections. The first section introduces the background of manufacturing simulation applications and the initial AR developments. The second section describes the current hardware and software tools associated with AR. The third section reports on the various studies of design and manufacturing activities, such as AR collaborative design, robot path planning, plant layout, maintenance, CNC simulation, and assembly using AR tools and techniques. The fourth section outlines the technology challenges in AR. Section 5 looks at some of the industrial applications. Section 6 addresses the human factors and interactions in AR systems. Section 7 looks into some future trends and developments, followed by conclusion in the last section.

7D13 力覚重畳技術を利用した生体臓器の硬さ呈示(OS12 ハイパーロボティクス・ハイパー計測の医療応用)

7D13 力覚重畳技術を利用した生体臓器の硬さ呈示(OS12 ハイパーロボティクス・ハイパー計測の医療応用)

Mobile augmented reality in the data center

Recent advances in compute power, graphics power, and cameras in mobile computing devices have facilitated the development of new augmented reality applications in the mobile device space. Mobile augmented reality provides a straightforward and natural way for users to understand complex data by overlaying visualization on top of a live video feed on their mobile device. In our data center mobile augmented reality project, the user points a mobile device camera at a rack of data center assets, and additional content about these assets is visually overlaid on top of each asset in the video stream from the mobile device camera. This correspondence between digital content and physical things or locations makes mobile augmented reality an intuitive user interface for interacting with the world around us. This paper describes augmented reality techniques for mobile devices and the motivations around using a multimarker computer vision-based technique for visualizing asset data in the data center. Our mobile augmented reality project enables system administrators to easily interact with hardware assets while they are in the data center, providing them with an additional tool to use in managing the data center.

Augmented Reality for the Improvement of Remote Laboratories: An Augmented Remote Laboratory

Augmented reality (AR) provides huge opportunities for online teaching in science and engineering, as these disciplines place emphasis on practical training and unsuited to completely nonclassroom training. This paper proposes a new concept in virtual and remote laboratories: the augmented remote laboratory (ARL). ARL is being tested in the first and second years of the new degrees in industrial engineering and computer engineering, respectively, at the School of Engineering, University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain. By means of augmented reality techniques, ARL allows the student to experience sensations and explore learning experiences that, in some cases, may exceed those offered by traditional laboratory classes. The effectiveness of this methodology for remote laboratory work is evaluated by comparing it to practical sessions in the laboratory at the university itself with the same group of students. Students completed a questionnaire after having experienced both types of practicals, and the results show that the use of ARL improves student outcomes. As discussed in the paper, the potential of AR to configure different experiments from the same physical configuration is virtually limitless.

Foreword of Special Issue on “Nomadic Services and Applications”

Foreword of Special Issue on “Nomadic Services and Applications”

Research of Place-based 3D Augmented Community-Taking The 3D Virtual Campus as an Example

Place-based virtual community is the trend of recent researches on pervasive computing. The purpose is to enable users in a physical place to receive ubiquitous services from the environment while they communicate with each other unwittingly. The paper further promotes this idea by allowing remote users to join such a virtual community as well as to interact with members on site and calls this type of community as the place-based 3D augmented (PDA) community. With the help of the augmented reality technique, on-the-spot member can visually sense the remote users by their representing avatars. To achieve this goal, the ambient communication environment is required to support message flow among the remote users and people on site. Besides, this environment should be able to discover context passing among members of this community to provide proper services. The context issues and context-awareness approaches of PDA community are fully discussed in the paper. Finally, the infrastructure of this PDA community is also presented along with preliminary result of the prototyping environment.

Study on Museum Digital Exhibition Mode and Industrialization of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Nowadays, most of exhibits are material antiquities while the exhibit of intangible cultural heritage is deficient and the form is less advanced which cannot meet the exhibition needs of digital times. This has resulted in insufficient display of intangible heritage's value which may not facilitate inherit and protection of intangible heritage, no other than protection mechanism of forming healthy industrialization. This article has established digital exhibition mode in museum about intangible cultural heritage by analysis on current museum and using mobile communication and augmented reality techniques. Discuss the mode in the layer integrating creative industry and mobile industry and provide practicable reference project of forming the healthy industrialization mechanism for protecting intangible heritage.

Augmented reality and image overlay navigation with OsiriX in laparoscopic and robotic surgery: not only a matter of fashion

New technologies can considerably improve preoperative planning, enhance the surgeon's skill and simplify the approach to complex procedures. Augmented reality techniques, robot assisted operations and computer assisted navigation tools will become increasingly important in surgery and in residents' education. We obtained 3D reconstructions from simple spiral computed tomography (CT) slides using OsiriX, an open source processing software package dedicated to DICOM images. These images were then projected on the patient's body with a beamer fixed to the operating table to enhance spatial perception during surgical intervention (augmented reality). Changing a window's deepness level allowed the surgeon to navigate through the patient's anatomy, highlighting regions of interest and marked pathologies. We used image overlay navigation for laparoscopic operations such cholecystectomy, abdominal exploration, distal pancreas resection and robotic liver resection. Augmented reality techniques will transform the behaviour of surgeons, making surgical interventions easier, faster and probably safer. These new techniques will also renew methods of surgical teaching, facilitating transmission of knowledge and skill to young surgeons.

Steerable projection: exploring alignment in interactive mobile displays

Emerging smartphones and other handheld devices are now being fitted with a set of new embedded technologies such as pico-projection. They are usually designed with the pico-projector embedded in the top of the device. Despite the potential of personal mobile projection to support new forms of interactivity such as augmented reality techniques, these devices have not yet made significant impact on the ways in which mobile data is experienced. We suggest that this `traditional' configuration of fixed pico-projectors within the device is unsuited to many projection tasks because it couples the orientation of the device to the management of the projection space, preventing users from easily and simultaneously using the mobile device and looking at the projection. We present a study which demonstrates this problem and the requirement for steerable projection behaviour and some initial users' preferences for different projection coupling angles according to context. Our study highlights the importance of flexible interactive projections which can support interaction techniques on the device and on the projection space according to task. This inspires a number of interaction techniques that create different personal and shared interactive display alignments to suit a range of different mobile projection situations.

Dual Surgical Navigation Using Augmented and Virtual Environment Techniques

To obtain additional depth and visual information in endoscopic surgery, a dual surgical navigation system using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) techniques complementarily was developed. A VR environment was constructed in the default 3-D view of the navigation software and an AR environment was developed as a plug-in module. The spatial relationships among the target organ, endoscope, and surgical tools were visualized, and the visual information superimposing invisible organs on the endoscopic images was supplied using the AR environment. Phantom experiments and preliminary clinical application showed promising results for surgical navigation.

The Development of the Augmented Reality Techniques in a Mobile Environment and the Active Utilization Plan of the Digital Design

The Development of the Augmented Reality Techniques in a Mobile Environment and the Active Utilization Plan of the Digital Design

인덱스를 활용한 3차원 콘텐츠 생성 시각화 구현에 관한 연구

유비쿼터스 환경에서 대표적인 장치들 가운데 하나인 이동장치가 이동성 덕분에 주목받고 있다. 일반적인 이동장치의 흐름은 스마트폰의 애플리케이션에 주목하고 있으며, 이 가운데 증강현실 등 객체들에 대한 지리적인 위치 및 현실적용 사례가 증가하고 있고, 이들에 대한 데이터 처리가 매우 중요해지고 있다. 이와 같이 사용자에게 제공하는 모바일응용서비스들은이동객체에기반한다양한서비스에대한기술이요구되어지며, 또한이들기술을활용하여 데이터를 시각적으로 인덱싱하여 신속하게 데이터가 처리되는 것을 시각적으로 표현하는 기술도 요구되어지고 있다. 그러나 이와 같이 사용자의 작업 이해를 높이기 위한 시각화 작업이 부족한것이 사실이다. 이러한 문제를 해결하기 위해 본 논문에서는 하위 트리를 갖는 R tree 인덱스를 활용하여 객체 생성을 수행하며, 생성된 객체들을 기반으로 3차원 도형으로 표현한 구현 결과를 보인다. 특히, 객체 생성과 이를 3차원으로 보여주며, 미니맵을 통해 사용자의 위치를 파악할 수 도 있으며, R tree의 노드안에 포함관계를 시각화시켜서 사용자의 이해를 향상시킬 수 있었다. Mobile device, one of typical devices in ubiquitous environment, is received attention owing to portability. In these days, technical researches on a kind of the device are focusing on applications of smart phone. For example, the techniques using geographical position and applied instances such as augmented reality techniques are gradually increasing. That makes data processing important. Mobile application services for users also require various application techniques based on moving objects. In addition, they require the techniques that processed data are needed to be shown in visualization. However, this is reality that it lacks of showing visualization works to improve the understanding of thing what it is. To reduce or solve the problems, in this paper we show the results to implement the R tree based 3 dimension index architecture in visualization. Further, we implemented and present creating objects, showing in 3D for the objects, catching spatial position on a node map through mini map function and improving the understanding of R tree by visualizing.

Virtual and augmented reality for cultural computing and heritage: a case study of virtual exploration of underwater archaeological sites (preprint)

The paper presents different issues dealing with both the preservation of cultural heritage using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies in a cultural context. While the VR/AR technologies are mentioned, the attention is paid to the 3D visualization, and 3D interaction modalities illustrated through three different demonstrators: the VR demonstrators (immersive and semi-immersive) and the AR demonstrator including tangible user interfaces. To show the benefits of the VR and AR technologies for studying and preserving cultural heritage, we investigated the visualisation and interaction with reconstructed underwater archaeological sites. The base idea behind using VR and AR techniques is to offer archaeologists and general public new insights on the reconstructed archaeological sites allowing archaeologists to study directly from within the virtual site and allowing the general public to immersively explore a realistic reconstruction of the sites. Both activities are based on the same VR engine, but drastically differ in the way they present information and exploit interaction modalities. The visualisation and interaction techniques developed through these demonstrators are the results of the ongoing dialogue between the archaeological requirements and the technological solutions developed.

Invisible Marker–Based Augmented Reality

To estimate camera pose, existing augmented reality (AR) techniques usually require fiducial markers with known geometry. However, placing a marker in the workspace of the user can be very visually intrusive. To overcome this limitation, a nonintrusive AR method using invisible markers that are created/drawn with an infrared (IR) ink is proposed and an IR marker tracking system is presented. This system includes additional algorithms to maintain reliable performance in a cluttered background. Then, the working conditions of IR markers are examined and compared with those of visual markers, and the optimal working conditions of IR markers are discussed. Next, the qualitative evaluation of an IR marker–based AR is presented through a variety of experiments and user evaluations. Finally, the potential applications of IR marker–based AR are explored.

Surgery in space: the future of robotic telesurgery

The origins of telemedicine date back to the early 1970s, and combined with the concept of minimally invasive surgery, the idea of surgical robotics was born in the late 1980s based on the principle of providing active telepresence to surgeons. Many research projects were initiated, creating a set of instruments for endoscopic telesurgery, while visionary surgeons built networks for telesurgical patient care, demonstrated transcontinental surgery, and performed procedures in weightlessness. Long-distance telesurgery became the testbed for new medical support concepts of space missions. This article provides a complete review of the milestone experiments in the field, and describes a feasible concept to extend telemedicine beyond Earth orbit. With a possible foundation of an extraplanetary human outpost either on the Moon or on Mars, space agencies are carefully looking for effective and affordable solutions for life-support and medical care. The major challenges of surgery in weightlessness are also discussed. Teleoperated surgical robots have the potential to shape the future of extreme health care both in space and on Earth. Besides the apparent advantages, there are some serious challenges, primarily the difficulty of latency with teleoperation over long distances. Advanced virtualization and augmented-reality techniques should help human operators to adapt better to the special conditions. To meet safety standards and requirements in space, a three-layered architecture is recommended to provide the highest quality of telepresence technically achievable for provisional exploration missions. Surgical robotic technology is an emerging interdisciplinary field, with a great potential impact on many areas of health care, including telemedicine. With the proposed three-layered concept-relying only on currently available technology-effective support of long-distance telesurgery and human space missions are both feasible.

증강현실을 이용한 한글의 색상 인식과 자소 패턴 분리

증강현실은 저렴한 장비의 보급으로 영상의 사용이 다양화 되면서, 실세계의 영상에 추가적인 이미지 및 영상을 출력할 수 있다. 최근 많은 증강현실 기법이 등장해 있으나 아직까지 정확한 문자 인식을 수행하지는 않고 있다. 본 논문에서는 시각적으로 글자로 표시된 마커를 인식하고, 마커의 글자의 색상과 일치하는 색을 찾아낸다. 그리고 그 글자를 인식하여 화면에 나타내 주는데, 본 논문에서는 수평 프로젝션에 의한 자소 패턴 분리 알고리즘을 적용하여 한글 표현의 6형식에 맞도록 자소를 분리하는 방법을 제시한다. 또한 증강 현실을 이용한 자소 패턴 분리를 실험 예제를 통하여 각 단계별로 진행되는 결과를 보여주었고, 실험 결과 검출률이 90% 이상임을 알 수 있었다. While diversification of the use of video in the prevalence of cheap video equipment, augmented reality can print additional real-world images and video image. Although many recent advent augmented reality techniques, currently attempting to correct the character recognition is performed. In this paper characters marked with a visual marker recognition, and the color to match the marker color of the characters finds. And, it was shown on the screen by the character recognition. In this paper, by applying the phoneme pattern segmentation algorithm by the horizontal projection, we propose to segment the phoneme to match the six types of Hangul representation. Throughout the experiment sample of phoneme segmentation using augmented reality showed proceeding result at each step, and the experimental results was found to be that detection rate was above 90%.

A Measuring Model of the Position of Moving Vehicle based on Integrated Vehicle Networks for Spatial Database Applications

Recently car navigation systems which have been widely spread and evolved. The systems use various information and techniques such as real time traffic information and augmented reality technique. In order to provide a shortest path with good flow, real-time traffic information provided by DMB is required. Augmented reality technique is also introduced to give a reality to driver by displaying real images captured by camera during driving. However, these operate well when the system receives GPS data normally. Exact information about the positions of vehicles is a base that supports the above function with realities. This paper proposes a model for acquiring exact position of vehicles. When the GPS does not operate normally, the proposed model uses various data which are generated by integrated vehicle networks.