Augmented reality approach for paper map visualization

Paper map visualization is good value proposition, even in the `everything is digital' world, because of the huge information density and ease of use at any remote or mobile location, especially in the military context. Completely doing away with the paper map brings in a discomfort factor for the military user. In this paper, we present a paper map data visualization solution that augments the information from the digital world onto a spread of a paper map. Augmented Reality techniques are used to enhance paper maps digitally resulting in a 3D visualization space with some interactions. The dynamic information of the terrain, placing virtual objects and interaction are features of the digital world that are superimposed onto a paper map. We have used ARToolkit marker tracking based approach and a see through Head Mounted Device for implementation. The digital elevation data in VRML format is split into smaller bits before rendering. The rendering is done after culling the relevant part of the terrain data and the same is popped up in stereo for enhanced visualization. The user can place virtual objects using markers. The distance between markers (user and reference) is calculated and is used for interactive features. The interaction options are load/select, slice/split and latch/freeze. We have achieved better performance by loading only the region of interest and not the complete terrain. The paper also illustrates the basic hardware set-up required for implementation.