Taking AR into large scale industrial environments: navigation and information access with mobile computers

This paper presents a framework of applications based on AR technologies. This framework is designed for spatial data access, on-site navigation, as well as real-time video augmentation, and is applicable to different scenarios in large industrial settings. In the core of our framework lies a mobile computer equipped with a camera. The camera observes the environment for visual coded markers. These markers are registered to a global coordinate system through available drawings or floor plans. The tracker software processes images coming from the camera at moderate frame rates (typically 12 fps) and estimates the location of the user. The system then can guide the user through the environment, provide the user with location relevant data from a spatial database, and augment the view of the user through the camera. Data exchange is done via a wireless network and the user interface allows the user to access various types of data without considerable effort