Fundamentals Of Wearable Computers And Augmented Reality

Fundamentals of Wearable Computers and Augmented Reality presents a broad coverage of the technologies and interface design issues associated with wearable computers and augmented reality displays both rapidly developing fields in computer science, engineering, and human interface design. This book presents concepts related to the use and underlying technologies of augmented reality and wearable computer systems. There are many application areas for this technology, such as medicine, manufacturing, training, and recreation. Wearable computers will allow a much closer association of information with the user than is possible with traditional desktop computers. This book addresses an important aspect of wearable computers and augmented reality, either from the conceptual or from an application framework. Given the wide coverage of topics on issues related to the display of computer-generated images in the environment, this book can be used as a text for computer science, computer engineering, and interface design courses.

Data will not help you if you can’t see it where you need it. Or can’t collect it where you need it. Upon these principles, wearable technology was born. And although smart watches and fitness trackers have become almost ubiquitous, with in-body sensors on the horizon, the future applications of wearable computers hold so much more. A trusted reference for almost 15 years, Fundamentals of Wearable Computers and Augmented Reality goes beyond smart clothing to explore user interface design issues specific to wearable tech and areas in which it can be applied. Upon its initial publication, the first edition almost instantly became a trusted reference, setting the stage for the coming decade, in which the explosion in research and applications of wearable computers and augmented reality occurred. Written by expert researchers and teachers, each chapter in the second edition has been revised and updated to reflect advances in the field and provide fundamental knowledge on each topic, solidifying the book’s reputation as a valuable technical resource as well as a textbook for augmented reality and ubiquitous computing courses. New Chapters in the Second Edition Explore: Haptics Visual displays Use of augmented reality for surgery and manufacturing Technical issues of image registration and tracking Augmenting the environment with wearable audio interfaces Use of augmented reality in preserving cultural heritage Human-computer interaction and augmented reality technology Spatialized sound and augmented reality Augmented reality and robotics Computational clothing From a technology perspective, much of what is happening now with wearables and augmented reality would not have been possible even five years ago. In the fourteen years since the first edition burst on the scene, the capabilities and applications of both technologies are orders of magnitude faster, smaller, and cheaper. Yet the book’s overarching mission remains the same: to supply the fundamental information and basic knowledge about the design and use of wearable computers and augmented reality with the goal of enhancing people’s lives.

Data will not help you if you can’t see it where you need it. Or can’t collect it where you need it. Upon these principles, wearable technology was born. And although smart watches and fitness trackers have become almost ubiquitous, with in-body sensors on the horizon, the future applications of wearable computers hold so much more. A trusted reference for almost 15 years, Fundamentals of Wearable Computers and Augmented Reality goes beyond smart clothing to explore user interface design issues specific to wearable tech and areas in which it can be applied. Upon its initial publication, the first edition almost instantly became a trusted reference, setting the stage for the coming decade, in which the explosion in research and applications of wearable computers and augmented reality occurred. Written by expert researchers and teachers, each chapter in the second edition has been revised and updated to reflect advances in the field and provide fundamental knowledge on each topic, solidifying the book’s reputation as a valuable technical resource as well as a textbook for augmented reality and ubiquitous computing courses. New Chapters in the Second Edition Explore: Haptics Visual displays Use of augmented reality for surgery and manufacturing Technical issues of image registration and tracking Augmenting the environment with wearable audio interfaces Use of augmented reality in preserving cultural heritage Human-computer interaction and augmented reality technology Spatialized sound and augmented reality Augmented reality and robotics Computational clothing From a technology perspective, much of what is happening now with wearables and augmented reality would not have been possible even five years ago. In the fourteen years since the first edition burst on the scene, the capabilities and applications of both technologies are orders of magnitude faster, smaller, and cheaper. Yet the book’s overarching mission remains the same: to supply the fundamental information and basic knowledge about the design and use of wearable computers and augmented reality with the goal of enhancing people’s lives.

Ready to Wear: A Rhetoric of Wearable Computers and Reality-Shifting Media explores how and to what ends wearable inventions and technologies augment or remix reality, as well as the claims used to promote them. As computer components shrink and our mobile culture normalizes, we wear computers on the body to create immersive experiences.

Hendrik Witt examines user interfaces for wearable computers and analyses the challenges imposed by the wearable computing paradigm through its dual-task character. He introduces a special software tool as well as the “HotWire” evaluation method to facilitate user interface development and evaluation. Based on the results of different end-user experiments conducted to study the management of interruptions with gesture and speech input in a wearable computing scenario, the author derives design guidelines and general constraints for forthcoming interface designs.

The confluence of decades of computer science and computer engineering research in multimodal interaction (e.g., speech and gesture recognition), machine learning (e.g., classification and feature extraction), software (e.g., web browsers, distributed agents), electronics (e.g., energy-efficient microprocessors, head-mounted displays), design methodology in user-centered design, and rapid prototyping have enabled a new class of computers—wearable computers. The lecture takes the viewpoint of a potential designer or researcher in wearable computing. Designing wearable computers requires attention to many different factors because of the computer’s closeness to the body and its use while performing other tasks. For the purposes of discussion, we have created the UCAMP framework, which consists of the following factors: user, corporal, attention, manipulation, and perception. Each of these factors and their importance is described. A number of example prototypes developed by the authors, as well as by other researchers, are used to illustrate these concepts. Wearable computers have established their first foothold in several application domains, such as vehicle and aircraft maintenance and manufacturing, inspection, language translation, and other areas. The lecture continues by describing the next step in the evolution of wearable computers, namely, context awareness. Context-aware computing takes into account a user’s state and surroundings, and the mobile computer modifies its behavior based on this information. A user’s context can be quite rich, consisting of attributes such as physical location, physiological state, personal history, daily behavioral patterns, and so forth. If a human assistant were given such context, he or she would make decisions in a proactive fashion, anticipating user needs, and acting as a proactive assistant. The goal is to enable mobile computers to play an analogous role, exploiting context information to significantly reduce demands on human attention. Context-aware intelligent agents can deliver relevant information when a user needs that information. These data make possible many exciting new applications, such as augmented reality, context-aware collaboration, and augmented manufacturing. The combined studies and research reported in this lecture suggest a number of useful guidelines for designing wearable computing devices. Also included with the guidelines is a list of questions that designers should consider when beginning to design a wearable computer. The research directions section emphasizes remaining challenges and trends in the areas of user interface, modalities of interaction, and wearable cognitive augmentation. Finally, we summarize the most important challenges and conclude with a projection of future directions in wearable computing. Table of Contents: Introduction / The Wearable Computing UCAMP / Design Guidelines for Wearable Computing / Research Directions / Conclusions and Future Challenges

The Springer Handbook of Augmented Reality presents a comprehensive and authoritative guide to augmented reality (AR) technology, its numerous applications, and its intersection with emerging technologies. This book traces the history of AR from its early development, discussing the fundamentals of AR and its associated science. The handbook begins by presenting the development of AR over the last few years, mentioning the key pioneers and important milestones. It then moves to the fundamentals and principles of AR, such as photogrammetry, optics, motion and objects tracking, and marker-based and marker-less registration. The book discusses both software toolkits and techniques and hardware related to AR, before presenting the applications of AR. This includes both end-user applications like education and cultural heritage, and professional applications within engineering fields, medicine and architecture, amongst others. The book concludes with the convergence of AR with other emerging technologies, such as Industrial Internet of Things and Digital Twins. The handbook presents a comprehensive reference on AR technology from an academic, industrial and commercial perspective, making it an invaluable resource for audiences from a variety of backgrounds.