Mobile Outdoor AR Assistance Systems - Insights from a Practical Application

With the increasing popularity of Augmented Reality (AR) applications, especially for mobile devices, the technology supports several construction projects. Here, AR helps to communicate planned construction projects, as its visualization increases the immersion and is better understood than common approaches. However, these use cases are mainly outdoors, which pose special requirements. For most, the (geo-referenced) 3D models of planning projects must be aligned correctly in natural environments, which is a challenge, as many AR devices and standard methods are not working for (large) outdoor environments. For this reason, new research approaches based on different algorithms and sensors arise. This paper defines requirements for developing geo-referenced outdoor AR applications by a structured literature analysis and developing an application with the key requirements: accurate 3D model placement and integration. Creating the mobile outdoor AR application further provides insights for developing such systems. The application considers several outdoor activity requirements and addresses different approaches to geo-referencing with internal and external sensors. This paper also presents two model integration methods: a 2D and a 3D environment scan and algorithmic processing.