Augmenting reality with geo-referenced information for environmental management

Abstract

When interacting with natural or urban environments there are many situations where the ability to access data in real time becomes relevant. Augmented Reality (AR) technologies allow real time superimposition of synthetic objects on real images, providing an augmented knowledge about the surrounding world. Using a Head Mounted Display, the user of an AR system can visualize the exterior world with additional virtual information that is generated in real time and in a contextual way.This paper presents ANTS (Augmented Environments), an AR project for providing geo-referenced environmental information. The project uses a flexible client-server approach that allows to move more or less components to the client, depending on processing power and application requirements. The geo-referenced database and 3D model for user positioning are located in the server and the presentation component, for image composition and display, is the most fundamental part of the client. The applications for environmental management, include monitoring water quality using models of the pollutant transport, the visualization of the temporal evolution of physical structures and the evolution of subsoil structures, such as phone and power supply networks.