UBIGIous – A Ubiquitous, Mixed-Reality Geographic

Information SystemDaniel PortaJan Conrad

Sindhura

Modupalli Kaumudi

Yerneni

UBIGIous

This is an informative system which combines reality with virtuality in an interactive mixed reality Scenario.

It is used to link virtual reality geographic Information systems with purely virtual interactive applications.

Its interactive and can be adapted by the user.

By means of visual building recognition capabilities, UBIGIous offers location based services with or without positioning via the Global positioning System.

MotivationRoute Guidance systems show the route in 2.5D

environment and these systems doesn't provide any interaction.

Environments like second life provide interaction but are purely virtual and do not have a mixed reality character.

Many Virtual Reality Geographic Information systems (VRGIS) focus on the visualization and the simulation of real Geographical Content in a 3D environment like the systems proposed by Koller, Brown. They involves immersive capabilities using special VR Hardware and a large scale creation of building models with appropriate textures.

They proposed a informative system that combines the reality with the virtuality in an interactive mixed reality scenario.

Users can participate in the system from their home by standard stationary PCs or from outdoors via mobile devices like smart phones.

It supports users with localized information about their designated travel destination in advance by accessing a virtual 3D environment.

Example: A visitor of a city wants to return to his hotel by bus. Unfortunately he forgot the name of the bus stop and the departure time of the bus. But he knows where the bus stop is located. From his current position he can now virtually move to the bus stop and have a look at the schedule.

Cont…

System Architecture

To move through the virtual world the user can

By pressing keys on the number keypad which submits appropriate actions to the interaction Server

If equipped with GPS receiver the user can change his position and orientation by moving in the real world.

Incase of not having a GPS receiver, the picture of the building is taken through mobile phone and is sent to the server where the recognition of building is done.

After the recognition being successfully accomplished IMAGE PROCESSOR returns the position of the image to the interaction server.

Using the geo-referenced data and position details 3D renderer updates the 3D scenario.

By using web services we can make the environment (weather..) which is similar to the real world.

Community based ApproachManages its content in a community based

approachResident merchants in order to promote

their business they annotate their shops, restaurants etc with the information they want with initial textures

Customers can leave their personal impressions or ratings for every object

Information from both of them is automatically grouped together and displayed in client side browser element.

Virtual graffiti are object related or geo referenced text or picture messages which can be tagged with multiple tags such as business, leisure,etc.

Visibility of the virtual graffiti can be restricted to certain users for which a buddy list can be maintained and particular users can be notified of the user’s interactions.

It incorporates text based instant messaging interface which allows users to communicate and collaborate.

Missing textures can be added by mobile users or existing textures can be updated.

Interactive 3D Scenario

Fully textured are a with user

Realized with Open Graphics Library.

Simple and realistic 3d Scenario is obtained.

Built on digital 2D maps of land registry buildings.

Cont…Points of interest which can be static or

dynamic objects can be represented in the environment.

Static objects can be ATM’s, landmarks or advertising pillars with notifications or sponsors.

Dynamic objects provide possibility to visualize other users in the scenario or buses driving from one stop to another

Interactions is possible with all objects in the environment through clicking it or selecting it through the mouse or with the help of navigational key pad in the mobile device.

In order to make it more immersive and adaptable to real world conditions web services are incorporated.

To make the weather adaptable to current weather in the real world an interface to meteorological web service is implemented

To further make it realistic illuminations can be adjusted and textures can be exchanged according to time of day and season

Extraction of building features3 D renderer uses the image as transparent

overlay which is displayed in the model.Knowing the user position from GPS receiver

the mapping of image is done automaticallyOnce the user confirms the mapping the

Image processor extracts the textures which are used in the environment

A digital fingerprint of each texture is computed contemporarily with extraction of textures.

Building Recognition An algorithm for building

recognition using a 15-D vector for comparison is proposed.

Rectify the original image which gives canonical view

In this view identify the boundaries of consecutive buildings first, then structures like windows and doors.the bounding box containing all these structures represents the canonical building view.

Using DCT compute the 15- dimensional vector representing the canonical building view.

Due to DCT similar canonical building obtain similar feature vectors so comparison is also done using the fingerprints of textures .

With all the necessary details available now the user’s position and viewing directions can be recovered.

Using this information the users position can be reset in the virtual environment and automatically select the recognized building

Thank You