Mechanism and Methods of Outdoor AR Spatial Information Visualization Representation

Almost all human outdoor activities is closely related to geographical position, thus the development of GIS is more rapidly. From the perspective of spatial information visualization, GIS is a digital description of objective geographical world. As abstract models of geographical environment, analog maps and 2D electronic maps have respective limitations in vivid representing spatial information. Simultaneously, the vast majority of HCI is limited to plane display and is difficult to users to integrate into it. Relation between outdoor AR (augmented reality) technology and spatial information visualization representation embodies in the common basic cognition and mobility. Emergence of outdoor AR and mobile GIS provides the combination of outdoor AR technology and spatial information visualization representation with powerful theoretical foundation and technical channel, which offers new ideas and new interface to spatial information visualization representation and is committed to enhance and expand user´s spatial cognition by overlaying virtual geographic objects on real scene. The paper firstly analyzes its research status, feasibility of the combination, basic characteristics and structure. Secondly, it discusses existing technologic prototypes from application-driven perspective and puts forward a research framework and discusses four key technologies: display device, tracking and positioning, virtual-real combination and HCI. Furthermore, it propose core algorithms including a hybrid registration method based on GPS and 3D electronic compass, registration methods using affine representation and geographical objects modeling etc. Lastly, it expatiate the applications and significance.