ITC/USA 2015 Conference Proceedings / The Fifty-First Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 26-29, 2015 / Bally's Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV / This paper describes a new way to look at telemetry data. Northern Arizona University (NAU) students are researching a new approach to apply virtual reality (VR) to evaluate data from a collection of stored signals. Each signal will have limits attached which we will use to view the parts of the waveform which contain abnormalities. A program to illustrate the technique is being developed by NAU students. Initially, we were working with Vizard 5, using the Python language. However, there is another program, Unity, which will perhaps be more useful for the application we wish to achieve. Additionally, we are examining a technique to accurately access the telemetry data collected. The amount of telemetry data collected has increased over the years resulting in difficulties in identifying the relevant information. We are searching for a better approach to store and access big data and will demonstrate this approach by utilizing Oculus Rift and Microsoft Kinect.

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This thesis looks at Augmented Reality (AR) and Expert Systems (ES) and how concepts from these techniques can be used to make instructions simpler for workers in the manufacturing industry. The experiment performed is based on a case study of “Block 9-11” at Volvo GTO in Skövde. A comparative study between the developed AR-system and the currently used instruction format has been made. For practical reasons the tasks and instructions were modified from the original. The results showed a similar time usage for the two systems but with a large amount of steps missed in the control group as well as a lower subjective usability-score from the testers, showing an advantage for the AR-system. In future work the plan is to further develop the adaptability-aspect, an aspect that didn’t give clear results in this study. / YOU2

The purpose of this thesis work is to create a prototype for an augmented reality application that isaimed to support service technician when performing service and maintenance of machines andengines. The prototype will be used for investigating what technical limitations there is and toestablish basic usability for the user interface. The method that is used is user studies and analysis toevaluate use cases and user stories. An iterative work process is then applied for design and theprototype is continuously user tested.The resulting prototype uses a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 running on Android operating system. Theframework used for augmented reality is NyARToolkit which handles marker recognition andconnections to Android. NyARToolkit uses OpenGL to visualize 3D models. The 3D models used isin the metasequoia fileformat. The application that implements the framework gets reasonableperformance on Galaxy Tab 2 and the visualization of 3D model is accomplished. A stabile markerrecognition is not attained.The usability has not been studied thoroughly, but it is designed based on the unofficial standard fordesign on mobile devices and for 3D manipulation on mobile devices. The graphical design is aimingfor an open workspace with as few interrupting objects as possible. Clear descriptions of objects are apart that has resulted from usertesting.Judging by the functionality that the prototype indicates it could be assumed that an application of thistype is possible in the given field, which is worked performed by a service technician. The testingequipment that has been used is not of the latest generation of mobile devices which can mean thatnewer models perform better than the ones used for testing. What seems to be limiting the use of themarker recognition is the quality of the video input. The device’s processing power affects howadvanced the 3D environment can be, which in turn can reduce performance when more complex 3Dmodels are used. Since there are several frameworks for the Android platform there is also severalsolutions to making a prototype with the sane functionality. Since I have only explored oneframework there is a possibility that another framework could have produced a more stabile prototypeThe user testing that has been performed points out that a distinct design is needed. Clearly describingtexts for different objects should be used to make the user less confused. An unofficial user designthat is generally used has to be implemented so that the users fell at home when handling theapplication on mobile devices.

Depending upon their nature, Outdoor AR applications can be deployed on head mounted displays (HMD) like Google glass or handheld Displays (HHD) like smartphones. This master’s thesis investigates novel gesture-based interaction techniques and applications for a HMD-HHD hybrid system that account for advantages presented by each platform. Prior research in HMD-HHD hybrid systems and gestures used in VR and surface computing were taken into account while designing the applications and interaction techniques. A prototype system combining a HMD and HHD was developed and four applications were created for the system. For evaluating the gestures, an application that compared four of the proposed gestures for selection tasks was developed. The results showed a significant difference between the different gestures and that the choice of gesture for selection tasks using a hybrid system depended upon application requirements like speed and accuracy.

This thesis presents the development of a set of novel graphical tools Known as 'virtual primitives' that allow the user of a stereoscopic telepresence system to actively and intuitively model features in a remote environment. The virtual primitives provide visual feedback during the model creating process in the form of a dynamic wireframe of the primitive overlaid and registered with the real object. The operator can immediately see the effect of his decisions and if necessary make minor corrections to improve the fit of the primitive during its generation. Virtual primitives are a generic augmented reality (AR) tool and their applications extend past the modelling of a workspace for telerobot operation to other remote tasks such as visual inspection, surveying and collaborative design. An AR system has been developed and integrated with the existing Surrey Telepresence System. The graphical overlays are generated using virtual reality software and combined with the video images. To achieve a one-to-one correspondence between the real and virtual worlds the AR system is calibrated using a simple pinhole camera model and standard calibration algorithm. An average RMS registration error between the video and graphical images of less than one framegrabber pixel is achieved. An assessment of a virtual pointer confirms that this level of accuracy is acceptable for use with the virtual primitives. The concept of the virtual primitives has been evaluated in an experiment to model three test objects. The results show that using a virtual primitive was superior in accuracy and task completion time to using a pointer alone. Finally, a case study on the remote inspection of sewers demonstrates the advantages of virtual primitives in a real application. It confirms that the use of virtual primitives significantly reduces the subjective nature of the task, offers an increase in precision by an order of magnitude over conventional inspection methods, and provides additional useful data on the characteristics of the sewer features not previously available.

The focus of this research was to examine how effectively augmented reality (AR) displays, generated with a wearable computer, could be used for aiding an operator performing a manufacturing assembly task. The research concentrated on comparing two technologies for generating augmented reality displays (opaque vs. see-through), with two current types of assembly instructions (a traditional assembly instruction manual vs. computer aided instruction). The study was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the wearable based augmented reality compared to traditional instruction methods, and was also used to compare two types of AR displays in the context of an assembly task. For the experiment, 15 subjects were asked to assemble a computer motherboard using the four types of instruction: paper manual, computer aided, an opaque AR display, and a see-through AR display. The study was run as a within subjects design, where subjects were randomly assigned the order of instruction media. For the AR conditions, the augmented environments were generated with a wearable computer, and viewed through two types of monocular, head-mounted displays (HMD). The first type of HMD was a monocular opaque HMD, and the second was a monocular see-though HMD. Prior to the experiment, all subjects performed a brief training session teaching them how to insert the various components of the motherboard in their respective slots. The time of assembly and assembly errors were measured for each type of media, and a questionnaire was administered to each subject at the end of each condition, and at the end of the experiment to determine the usability of the four instructional media. The results of the experiment indicated that both augmented reality conditions were more effective instructional aids for the assembly task than either the paper instruction manual or the computer aided instruction. The see-through HMD resulted in the fastest assembly times followed by the opaque HMD, the computer aided instruction, and the paper instructions respectively. In addition, subjects made fewer errors using the AR conditions compared to the other two types of instructional media. However, while the two AR conditions were a more effective instructional media when time was the response measure, there were still some important usability issues associated with the AR technology that were not present in the non-AR conditions. Many of the subjects indicated that both types of HMDs were uncomfortable, and over half expressed concerns about poor image contrast with the see-through HMDs. Finally, this thesis discusses the results of this study as well as implications for the design and use of AR and wearable computers for manufacturing assembly tasks. / Master of Science

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Despite the increasingly sophisticated capabilities of mobile AR guidance applications in providing new ways of interacting with the surrounding environment, empirical research remains needed in four principal areas: 1) identifying user needs and use cases, 2) developing an appropriate theoretical framework, 3) understanding user's interactions with the surrounding environment, and 4) avoiding information overload. To address these needs, a mixed-methods approach, involving two studies, was used to extend current Situation Awareness (SA) theory and evaluate the application of an extended theory. These were achieved in the context of a reality-augmented environment for the task of exploring an unfamiliar urban context. The first study examined SA in terms of the processes that an individual employs and the essential requirements needed to develop SA for the case of urban exploratory navigation using mobile augmented reality (MAR). From this study, SA-supported design implications for an MAR guidance application were developed, and used to evaluate the application of an extended SA theoretical cognitive model. The second study validated the earlier findings, and involved two specific applications of the translated SA-supported interface design and an evaluation of five conceptual design concepts. Results of the AR interface application suggested a significant SA-supported interface design effect on user's SA, which is dependent on the number of Points of Interest (POIs) included in the interface. Results of the embedded Map interface application showed a significant SA-support interface design effect on a user's SA. The SA-supported interface designs helped participants complete task queries faster and led to higher perceived interface usability. This work demonstrates that, by adopting a systematic approach, transformed requirements can be obtained and used to design and develop SA-supported strategies. In doing so, subsequent implementation of SA-supported strategies could enhance a user's SA in the context exploratory navigation in an urban environment using MAR. Indeed, a validation process was initiated for the extracted user requirements, by conducting evaluations on these SA-supported strategies. Finally, a set of preliminary design recommendations is proposed, with the goal of their eventual incorporation into the design and development of more effective mobile AR guidance applications. / Ph. D.

This report describes an embedded system designed to support the development of embedded augmented reality applications. It includes an integrated camera and built-in graphics acceleration hardware. An example augmented reality application serves as a demonstration of how these features are accessed, as well as providing an indication of the performance of the device. The embedded augmented reality development platform consists of the Gumstix Overo computer-on-module paired with the custom-built Overocam camera board. This device offers an ARM Cortex-A8 CPU running at 600 MHZ and 256 MB of RAM, along with the ability to capture VGA video at 30 frames per second. The device runs an operating system based on version 2.6.33 of the Linux kernel. The main feature of the device is the OMAP3530 multimedia applications processor from Texas Instruments. In addition to the ARM CPU, it provides an on-board 2D/3D graphics accelerator and a digital signal processor. It also includes a built-in camera peripheral interface, reducing the complexity of the camera board design. A working example of an augmented reality application is included as a demonstration of the device's capabilities. The application was designed to represent a basic augmented reality task: tracking a single marker and rendering a simple virtual object. It runs at around 8 frames per second when a marker is visible and 13 frames per second otherwise. The result of the project is a self-contained computing platform for vision-based augmented reality. It may either be used as-is or customised with additional hardware peripherals, depending on the requirements of the developer.