An Application of Augmented Reality (AR) in the Teaching of an Arc Welding Robot

Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology that utilizes computer vision methods to overlay virtual objects onto the real world scene so as to make them appear to co-exist with the real objects. Its main objective is to enhance the user’s interaction with the real world by providing the right information needed to perform a certain task. Applications of this technology in manufacturing include maintenance, assembly and telerobotics. In this paper, we explore the potential of teaching a robot to perform an arc welding task in an AR environment. We present the motivation, features of a system using the popular ARToolkit package, and a discussion on the issues and implications of our research.

Assembly Design and Evaluation in an Augmented Reality Environment

The technologies and methodologies of assembly design and evaluation in the early design stage are highly significant to product development. This paper looks at a promising technology to mix real components (e.g. physical prototypes, assembly tools, machines, etc.) with virtual components to create an Augmented Reality (AR) interface for assembly process evaluation. The goal of this paper is to clarify the methodologies and enabling technologies of how to establish an AR assembly simulation and evaluation environment. The architecture of an AR assembly system is proposed and the important functional modules including AR environment set-up, design for assembly (DFA) analysis and AR assembly sequence planning in an AR environment are discussed in detail.

Assembly Guidance in Augmented Reality Environments Using a Virtual Interactive Tool

The application of augmented reality (AR) technology for assembly guidance is a novel approach in the traditional manufacturing domain. In this paper, we propose an AR approach for assembly guidance using a virtual interactive tool that is intuitive and easy to use. The virtual interactive tool, termed the Virtual Interaction Panel (VirIP), involves two tasks: the design of the VirIPs and the real-time tracking of an interaction pen using a Restricted Coulomb Energy (RCE) neural network. The VirIP includes virtual buttons, which have meaningful assembly information that can be activated by an interaction pen during the assembly process. A visual assembly tree structure (VATS) is used for information management and assembly instructions retrieval in this AR environment. VATS is a hierarchical tree structure that can be easily maintained via a visual interface. This paper describes a typical scenario for assembly guidance using VirIP and VATS. The main characteristic of the proposed AR system is the intuitive way in which an assembly operator can easily step through a pre-defined assembly plan/sequence without the need of any sensor schemes or markers attached on the assembly components.

Facilitating Mechanical Design with Augmented Reality

By enhancing a real scene with computer generated objects, Augmented Reality (AR), has proven itself as a valuable Human-Computer Interface (HCI) in numerous application areas such as medical, military, entertainment and manufacturing. It enables higher performance of on-site tasks with seamless presentation of up-to-date, task-related information to the users during the operation. AR has potentials in design because the current interface provided by Computer-aided Design (CAD) packages is less intuitive and reports show that the presence of physical objects help design thinking and communication. This research explores the use of AR to improve the efficiency of a design process, specifically in mechanical design.

INFO2009 2012-13 Resource Group 7 video Augmented Reality

This repository contains the coursework for group 7 - The Kamikaze Spanners for the module INFO2009. Our work consists of an educational movie/video on the legal and ethical issues raised by the use of Augmented Reality, a flyer in docx and pdf format and a readme.txt file. The two presenting slides used during lectures have also been uploaded to the repository, as per the coursework instructions. To view our video, please download and run it on any standard video player. Alternatively, our video can also be seen on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYXJ7Ma4RrQ

INFO2009 2012-13: An Educational Video on Augmented Reality by Group 8 - Team Infinity

An educational resource set on Augmented Reality and whether it really is "A Vision of Tomorrow". Our educational video takes the audience on a journey through the current uses of AR, then to the future and we also discusses legal and ethical issues towards the end.

Technology enhanced learning and augmented reality : an application on multimedia interactive books

Multimedia Interactive Book (miBook) reflects the development of a new concept of virtual interpretation of traditional text books and audio-visual content. By encompassing new technological approaches, using augmented reality technology, allows the final user to experience a variety of sensorial stimuli while enjoying and interacting with the content; therefore enhancing the learning process. miBook stands for a global educational intention to enable people not only to access but also to appropriate intellectually valuable contents coming from different linguistic and cultural contexts.

Integrating augmented reality with home systems

Augmented Reality systems overlay computer generated information onto a user's natural senses. Where this additional information is visual, the information is overlaid on the user's natural visual field of view through a head mounted (or “head-up”) display device. Integrated Home Systems provides a network that links every electrical device in the home which provides to a user both control and data transparency across the network.

SysteM of augmented reality for teaching kids: smartkids

As crianças do jardim de infância/pré-escola são um grupo de utilizadores muito especiais, uma vez que se encontram numa fase inicial das suas vidas onde têm de aprender a viver em sociedade, isto é, aprender a ouvir e respeitar as opiniões dos outros, partilhar os mesmos objectos e também a ajudar-se mutuamente. Este estudo mostra que através da utilização da tecnologia Realidade Aumentada, estas crianças são capazes de colaborar de uma forma espontânea suportada pela motivação, envolvimento e curiosidade. Descreve-se o design e a avaliação de um jogo de Realidade Aumentada, que consiste num sistema educativo para o ensino de crianças do pré-escolar. Este jogo permite que as crianças explorem conceitos tais como os animais e os meios onde vivem através de marcadores de Realidade Aumentada e de um tabuleiro de madeira. Estes marcadores consistem nas peças do jogo e através deles, as crianças podem manipular objectos virtuais em 3D. Foram realizados testes com diversas turmas de crianças em diferentes ambientes de aprendizagem, nomeadamente em escolas e num museu. Os resultados sugerem que o jogo é eficaz para obter níveis altos de concentração, motivação e colaboração entre as crianças, particularmente quando o feedback do jogo é fornecido de forma imediata. Os resultados mostram também que o jogo tem um impacto positivo sobre a experiência de aprendizagem das crianças.

ARISupport - Interaction support for augmented reality systems

The communication between user and software is a basic stage in any Interaction System project. In interactive systems, this communication is established by the means of a graphical interface, whose objective is to supply a visual representation of the main entities and functions present in the Virtual Environment. New ways of interacting in computational systems have been minimizing the gap in the relationship between man and computer, and therefore enhancing its usability. The objective of this paper, therefore, is to present a proposal for a non-conventional user interface library called ARISupport, which supplies ARToolKit applications developers with an opportunity to create simple GUI interfaces, and provides some of the functionality used in Augmented Reality systems. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.

Support on the remote interaction for augmented reality system

This article presents a support on the remote interaction for utilization in augmented reality systems based on ARToolkit. It utilizes the multicast communication in order to improve the scalability of distributed environment. This support may be utilized in production of specific applications pointed to distance education, training and entertainment. The validity of support happened with the implementation of a prototype and realization of tests for communication latency analysis and frames per second rate. © 2007 IEEE.

Mutual occlusion between real and virtual elements in Augmented Reality based on fiducial markers

Augmented Reality (AR) systems which use optical tracking with fiducial marker for registration have had an important role in popularizing this technology, since only a personal computer with a conventional webcam is required. However, in most these applications, the virtual elements are shown only in the foreground a real element does not occlude a virtual one. The method presented enables AR environments based on fiducial markers to support mutual occlusion between a real element and many virtual ones, according to the elements position (depth) in the environment. © 2012 IEEE.

ARBOT: augmented reality system for teaching logic algorithmic

This article purposes the ARBot, a system that has as main objective the presentation of concepts of logic for students of elementary and secondary education. The system was developed using the technology known as Augmented Reality (AR), which allows complement the actual environment where the user is, by adding virtual objects. In this scenario the RA created from a virtual game interface is used, through which cognitive challenges are presented. To solve these challenges, users must set up three-dimensional virtual characters using visual language. As a result it follows that, in a playful way, concepts of algorithms and programming are assimilated by users. In addition, the system enables two users to interact in a cooperative game mode. In cooperative mode, the system focuses on collaborative learning, since it allows users to jointly solve the cognitive challenge presented by the system.

Augmented reality in sport scenarios using cameras mounted on a tripod

[ES] In this paper we address the problem of inserting virtual content in a video sequence. The method we propose uses just image information. We perform primitive tracking, camera calibration, real and virtual camera synchronisation and finally rendering to insert the virtual content in the real video sequence. To simplify the calibration step we assume that cameras are mounted on a tripod (which is a common situation in practise). The primitive tracking procedure, which uses lines and circles as primitives, is performed by means of a CART (Classification and Regression Tree). Finally, the virtual and real camera synchronisation and rendering is performed using functions of OpenGL (Open Graphic Library). We have applied the method proposed to sport event scenarios, specifically, soccer matches. In order to illustrate its performance, it has been applied to real HD (High Definition) video sequences. The quality of the proposed method is validated by inserting virtual elements in such HD video sequence.

Un'applicazione VoIP per Symbian: un'interfaccia utente

Nel campo della tecnologia, l’ultimo decennio è stato caratterizzato da significativi sviluppi nel mondo dei dispositivi mobili. Si è passati dal tradizionale telefono cellulare, ai più recenti palmari e Smartphone che integrano al tradizionale stereotipo di telefono cellulare, funzionalità avanzate su hardware molto sofisticato. Con un moderno dispositivo mobile infatti, è possibile collegarsi ad Internet, leggere mail, guardare video, scaricare applicazioni e installarle per poterne così fruire. L’International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T) ha stimato che alla fine del 2010 il numero di utenti Internet a livello mondiale ha raggiunto i 2 mi- liardi e che gli accessi alla rete cellulare hanno raggiunto circa 5,3 miliardi di sottoscrizioni. Se si considera inoltre che le reti 2G verranno sostituite da quelle 3G (che consente una connessione alla rete a banda larga tramite dispositivi cellulari), è inevitabile che nel prossimo futuro, gli utilizzatori di Internet tramite rete mobile potranno arrivare ad essere anche qualche miliardo. Le applicazioni disponibili in rete sono spesso scritte in linguaggio Java che su dispositivi embedded, dove è cruciale il consumo di energia, mettono in crisi la durata della batteria del dispositivo. Altre applicazioni scritte in linguaggi meno dispendiosi in termini di consumi energetici, hanno un’interfaccia scarna, a volte addirittura ridotta a semplice terminale testuale, che non è indicata per utenti poco esperti. Infine altre applicazioni sono state eseguite solo su simulatori o emulatori, perciò non forniscono riscontri su dispositivi reali. In questa tesi verrà mostrato come su un dispositivo mobile sia possibile utilizzare, tramite un’interfaccia “user-friendly”, una tecnologia già esistente e diffusa come il VoIP in maniera tale che qualunque tipologia di utente possa utilizzarla senza conoscerne i dettagli tecnici. Tale applicazione, dovendo utilizzare una connessione dati, sfrutterà o una connessione a una rete WLAN o una connessione a una rete cellulare (GPRS, UMTS e HSDPA ad esempio) a seconda della dotazione hardware dell’apparecchio mobile e della locazione dello stesso in una rete accessibile dall’utente.