SBIR Phase I: Immersive Augmented Reality Landscape Viewer for Public Space Deployment

这个SBIR一期项目将探索将增强现实双目信息亭带到公共场所的技术、商业和教育潜力，以及它们对公众对一个地方的理解产生持久影响的能力。拟议的研究和开发阶段将侧重于在合作伙伴地点部署和实地测试一系列原型，并检查它们在吸引和通知这些地点的访问者方面的功效。该项目更广泛的意义在于开发一个信息设备和生态系统，让公众更好地了解著名的地方和更大的物理世界。部署将能够可视化各种特定地点的数据，从环境条件到地质构造和地标导航。潜在的收入可以在与地点的合作中产生，允许项目和地点之间可持续的长期合作。通过增加人流量和鼓励对空间的额外探索，给一个地点及其周围带来了直接的经济影响。提出的创新是立体宽视场透视增强现实观测器，以景观双目亭的形式设计，旨在为公共空间提供一种吸引游客的方式，让他们了解该地点的自然、科学和历史特征。除了将沉浸式媒体体验以光学方式叠加在现实世界的视图上，该项目还在该位置创建了一个分布式媒体网络，以共享数据和内容，供远程观看和分析。研究的目标和范围包括设备在长时间公开暴露下的耐久性测试，用户界面和软件工具的有效性，了解设备对设备通信的范围和带宽，以及光学，机电和传感器组件的优化。方法和途径将包括在伙伴地点对原型单位进行实地测试，并使用调查和分析技术来评价这些地点干预的总体数量和质量效果。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This SBIR Phase I project will explore the technical, commercial, and educational potentials of bringing augmented reality binocular kiosks to public locations and their ability to create lasting impact on the public's understanding of a place. The proposed research and development phase will focus on the deployment and field testing of a collection of prototypes with partner locations, and examine their efficacy at engaging and informing visitors of those sites. The broader significance of the project is the development of an information device and ecosystem that gives the public a better understanding of notable places and the greater physical world. Deployments will be able to visualize a variety of site-specific data, from environmental conditions, to geological formations and landmark navigation. Potential revenue can be generated in partnership with locations, allowing for sustainable long-term engagements between the project and a site. Direct economic impact is brought to a location and its surroundings through increased foot traffic and the encouragement of additional exploration of a space.The innovation being proposed is stereoscopic wide-field-of-view see-through augmented reality viewers in the form of landscape binocular kiosks designed to give public spaces a way to engage visitors with the natural, scientific, and historic features of that location. In addition to displaying immersive media experiences optically overlaid onto a view of the real world, this project creates a distributed media network on that location to share data and content for remote viewing and analysis. Goals and scope of research include durability testing of the devices in prolonged public exposure, effectiveness of the user interface and software tools, understanding the range and bandwidth of device-to-device communication, and optimization of the optical, electromechanical, and sensor components. Methods and approaches will include the field testing of prototype units with partner locations, and using survey and analysis techniques to evaluate the overall quantitative and qualitative efficacy of the intervention at those sites.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.