With the advent (or threat?) of ubiquitous usage of Google glasses, the report, ‘Advancing asset knowledge though virtual reality’ is timely. The 33 page document—a free download from—was produced by specialists from Fiatech and ‘Comint’, (Construction opportunities for mobile IT). Augmented Reality is ‘a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated imagery.’ The technology is expected to help mobile workers leverage digital information onsite.
The document reports on field trials involving highways and railroad projects in the UK. One used static cameras to create ‘Earthmine’ geo-referenced cubic panoramas (à la Google Street View) which can blend photo imagery and model data. Another pilot blended Earthmine imagery with real-time sensor data and live video streams.
The project encountered issues making the different components interoperate. Code examples were ‘inadequate’ and the camera’s API was ‘very limited.’ But the test yielded positive results and showed that merging data and video streams from a mobile camera device is ‘viable.’
This article originally appeared in Oil IT Journal 2013 Issue # 4.
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