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Handheld Augmented Reality for underground infrastructure visualization

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Abstract

In this paper, we present an Augmented Reality (AR) system for aiding field workers of utility companies in outdoor tasks such as maintenance, planning or surveying of underground infrastructure. Our work addresses these issues using spatial interaction and visualization techniques for mobile AR applications and as well as for a new mobile device design. We also present results from evaluations of the prototype application for underground infrastructure spanning various user groups. Our application has been driven by feedback from industrial collaborators in the utility sector, and includes a translation tool for automatically importing data from utility company databases of underground assets.

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Notes

  1. http://www.vidente.at.

  2. http://www.virtualearth.com or http://earth.google.com.

  3. http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wfs.

  4. http://www.opengeospatial.org.

  5. http://www.studierstube.org.

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Acknowledgments

This work was sponsored by Österreichische Forschungs-förderungsgesellschaft FFG under contract no. BRIDGE 811000 and ASAP ARTIST 815531, the European Union under contract no. FP6-2004-IST-427571 and the Austrian Science Fund FWF under contract no. Y193 and W1209-N15. We thank VRVis Graz group for providing the 3D reconstruction library. We also thank GRINTEC GmbH and Innsbrucker Kommunalbetriebe AG for providing the relevant geospatial data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graz University of Technology, Inffeldgasse 16a, 8010, Graz, Austria

    Gerhard Schall, Erick Mendez, Ernst Kruijff, Eduardo Veas & Dieter Schmalstieg

  2. GRINTEC GmbH, Anzengrubergasse 6, 8010, Graz, Austria

    Sebastian Junghanns

  3. Microsoft Photogrammetry, Anzengrubergasse 8, 8010, Graz, Austria

    Bernhard Reitinger

Authors
  1. Gerhard Schall
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  2. Erick Mendez
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  3. Ernst Kruijff
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  4. Eduardo Veas
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  5. Sebastian Junghanns
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  6. Bernhard Reitinger
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  7. Dieter Schmalstieg
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Correspondence to Gerhard Schall.

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Schall, G., Mendez, E., Kruijff, E. et al. Handheld Augmented Reality for underground infrastructure visualization. Pers Ubiquit Comput 13, 281–291 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-008-0204-5

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