Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 1 Mobile Google Maps
example
original SDK, which allows the creation of a Google Map application. Our system
makes use of the SDK and the Application Programming Interface (API) of the
Google Maps library. We will provide more technical details on this later in the
chapter.
3.2 Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality (AR) has been established as a research area since the late
1990's. During this time the AR research area has matured remarkably. The survey
Recent Advances in Augmented Reality (Azuma et al.
2001
) defines AR as follows:
An AR system supplements the real world with virtual objects that appear to
coexist in the same space as the real world. The authors also define that any AR
system has to have the following properties:
• combines real and virtual objects in a real environment,
• runs interactively, and in real time,
• registers real and virtual objects with each other.
In other words augmented reality can be described as a live camera stream that
has a virtual object augmented on top of each frame. The camera feed shows the
user the reality as it is seen by the camera. The video feed can be combined with a
number of overlays to augment the real objects with virtual ones. Examples of
augmentations can vary from 3D objects to images, sounds or text. For the purpose
of this study we accept and follow the above mentioned definition of augmented
reality.
Mobile platforms such as Android offer a number of features that make them
suitable for mobile augmented reality applications. We have taken advantage of
some of the features, and developed a system that provides the user with a more
enhanced experience of the virtual annotation. This modality can be and often is
used in the context of other application domains. It is important to notice that any
