High-precision vision-based mobile augmented reality system for context-aware architectural, engineering, construction and facility management (AEC/FM) applications

Abstract

Background: Many context-aware techniques have been proposed to deliver cyber-information, such as project specifications or drawings, to on-site users by intelligently interpreting their environment. However, these techniques primarily rely on RF-based location tracking technologies (e.g., GPS or WLAN), which typically do not provide sufficient precision in congested construction sites or require additional hardware and custom mobile devices. Method: This paper presents a new vision-based mobile augmented reality system that allows field personnel to query and access 3D cyber-information on-site by using photographs taken from standard mobile devices. The system does not require any location tracking modules, external hardware attachments, and/or optical fiducial markers for localizing a user's position. Rather, the user's location and orientation are purely derived by comparing images from the user's mobile device to a 3D point cloud model generated from a set of pre-collected site photographs. Results:The experimental results show that 1) the underlying 3D reconstruction module of the system generates complete 3D point cloud models of target scene, and is up to 35 times faster than other state-of-the-art Structure-from-Motion (SfM) algorithms, 2) the localization time takes at most few seconds in actual construction site. Conclusion:The localization speed and empirical accuracy of the system provides the ability to use the system on real-world construction sites. Using an actual construction case study, the perceived benefits and limitations of the proposed method for on-site context-aware applications are discussed in detail.

Review and analysis of augmented reality literature for construction industry

“…Portable and mobile AR systems including: radio-frequency based tracking technologies such as GPS, WLAN, indoor GPS; infrastructure-dependent technologies such as fiducial markers; infrastructure-independent tracking technologies such as gyroscopes; and image-based tracking techniques have been studied in many research projects (Bae et al 2013). Moreover, using cloud computing technologies for web-based and ubiquitous AR systems has been explored in recent years ).…”

Laser Scanner Technology, Ground-Penetrating Radar and Augmented Reality for the Survey and Recovery of Artistic, Archaeological and Cultural Heritage

“…An emerging technology through the spread of ever-rich portable devices with potential content and applications, the daughter of Virtual Reality is the Augmented Reality (Bae et al, 2013). It consists in adding additional information to the actual or virtually recreated scene; however, unlike Virtual Reality that tends to replace the real world with a completely synthetic environment and isolated from the real one, Augmented Reality integrates the real world with information and virtual objects.…”

Editorial visualization in engineering

“…AR technologies have also been adopted and reviewed for architectural, engineering, construction and facility management (AEC/FM) applications (Rankohi & Waugh 2013), and the research results of (Bae et al 2013) show that their mobile approaches have ability to be used on real-world construction sites. The accessibility of construction equipment have been examined by (Yang et al 2013) using a virtual reality (VR) platform.…”