GPS and Compass Aided Augmented Campus Guide

Augmented Reality (AR) is a view of a physical, real-world environment in real-time in which some elements are augmented by computer-generated object such as sound, video, graphics or plain text. Early stages of AR primarily used head-mounted display that includes a helmet and a display screen. To support such display, people need to carry computers with them to process complex calculations. But as mobile devices started to house powerful processors as well as sensors such as GPS and compass, researchers are now able to use mobile devices for running AR applications. Computer vision has been commonly used in AR applications to track objects in the real world and determine what virtual objects should be augmented based on the tracking information from the real world. However, image recognition is an expensive process. The GPS and Compass Aided Augmented Campus Guide project proposes a method to identify a landmark without image recognition. The system is composed of two parts, backend database and a frontend iPad application. The database consists of GPS coordinates of landmarks and iPad application uses them to identify landmarks by comparing them with geo location and compass heading of the device. Landmark boxes are augmented to the user screen in real-time as they come into the camera view of the device. Events associated with a landmark are stored either in database or in the user’s calendar. The application adds them to the user view when the user is interested in a landmark. In addition, this application allows tagging of a 3d object at a location. These 3d objects are augmented to the user view when he/she approaches the location. The implementation of this project demonstrates greater understanding and integration of sensor GPS, compass, gyroscope with native iOS applications.