DATA VISUALIZATION USING AUGMENTED REALITY FOR GEOMATICS APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Analysis of geospatial data and its presentation is a very important portion of the Geomatics Engineering. The data visualization of geospatial data has evolved from paper-based maps to digital maps and is going towards the intelligent maps with embedded information. The technology which would enhance the way engineers interpret and interact with this information even more is Augmented reality or AR. AR is not a new technology and is continuously evolving and has a lot of potential in various fields may it be engineer or nonengineering domain. There has been lots of examples of using AR for visualization and this distinctive feature puts this technology in the radar for Geo-visualization. In this research, AR is being tied with the visualization of data generated from geomatics survey or for geomatics application and a framework is prepared on the processes, hardware and software used for the visualization task. Few native apps with AR and VR capabilities are developed which are used for visualization of 3D map of Civil Engineering Department and other departments of IIT Roorkee. It also has user interface and interaction capabilities to envisage the 3D buildings in a different media technology. Field of WebAR is also explored and some of the JavaScript libraries are also used for displaying Geo-data using AR on the web.