Visualising Geographical

Information in Augmented Reality

A case study using Edinburgh’s Arthur’s Seat

Trevor A. DraesekeEDINA GeoForum 2016

Augmented Reality and GIS

Augmented Reality (AR) is a view of the physical world upon which information, graphics and/or sound are augmented

1994 – A Formal Taxonomy: The Virtuality Continuum Early 2000s - AR has been used in a number of geovisualisation

applications Visualise the past - archaeological sites Visualise the future – planned alterations to the landscape Assess building damage after disasters Show underground/hidden infrastructure Promote tourism Education

So…What sets this project apart?

Past AR implementations were ambition, but often limited by burdensome hardware

An obvious platform—the smartphone An obvious programmatic structure—an app Built with a very general goal…

Project ambitions

Build an app, the ‘Arthur’s Seat Augmented Reality Visualiser’ (ArSARV)

The app should follow the lead of traditional GIS Dynamically overlay geographical information layers Let the user choose those layers (ie using WMS)

Perform user testing of the app in the field

A proof of concept

A proof of concept

A proof of concept

The app in action…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHR3CDpYC8g

User testing

Driven by research questions: How well can geographical information be translated onto the landscape in

Augmented Reality versus with a traditional map? Which types of geographical information are most usefully visualised in

Augmented Reality? This was tested by way of a translation exercise and a questionnaire

asked of members of the public in Holyrood Park

Future Work

Allow users to interact with their preferred geographical information through WMS servers

Improved interactivity with the underlying dataset True object recognition and tracking

Thank you!