**Outdoor and Mobile AR Applications**

**1. Introduction**

be the case for tactical operations.

as platforms for such a purpose.

center monitor the situation from a third-person perspective.

Augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) are being used in urban leader tactical response, awareness and visualization applications (Livingston et al., 2006; *Urban Leader Tactical Response, Awareness & Visualization (ULTRA-Vis)*, n.d.). Fixed-position surveillance cameras, mobile cameras, and other image sensors are widely used in security monitoring and command and control for special operations. Video images from video see-through AR display and optical tracking devices may also be fed to command and control centers. The ability to let the command and control center have a view of what is happening on the ground in real time is very important for situation awareness. Decisions need to be made quickly based on a large amount of information from multiple image sensors from different locations and angles. Usually video streams are displayed on separate screens. Each image is a 2D projection of the 3D world from a particular position at a particular angle with a certain field of view. The users must understand the relationship among the images, and recreate a 3D scene in their minds. It is a frustrating process, especially when it is a unfamiliar area, as may

**Mixed Reality on a Virtual Globe** 

*Information Management and Decision Architectures,*

Zhuming Ai and Mark A. Livingston *3D Virtual and Mixed Environments*

*Naval Research Laboratory*

*Washington*

*USA*

**1**

AR is, in general, a first-person experience. It is the combination of real world and computer-generated data from the user's perspective. For instance, an AR user might wear translucent goggles; through these, he can see the real world as well as computer-generated images projected on top of that world (Azuma, 1997). In some AR applications, such as the battle field situation awareness AR application and other mobile outdoor AR applications (Höllerer et al., 1999; Piekarski & Thomas, 2003), it is useful to let a command and control

Our objective is to integrate geometric information, georegistered image information, and other georeferenced information into one mixed environment that reveals the geometric relationship among them. The system can be used for security monitoring, or by a command and control center to direct a field operation in an area where multiple operators are engaging in a collaborative mission, such as a SWAT team operation, border patrol, security monitoring, etc. It can also be used for large area intelligence gathering or global monitoring. For outdoor MR applications, geographic information systems (GIS) or virtual globe systems can be used
