Augmented Reality (AR) can seamlessly combine a real scene viewed by a user and a virtual component generated by a computer. This work introduces a system architecture integrating augmented reality technology with state-of-art computer vison techniques such as image semantic segmentation and style colorization. The proposed production system, ARNature, is able to superimpose a virtual scene, audio, and other enhancements in real time over a realworld environment for enhancing tourism experience. ARNature: A lot times, tourists have limited money and time to experience a tourist site during different seasons or weather conditions. The visitors are able to go on an augmented reality journey using an AR device, such as HoloLens, tablet or cellphones, and interact with real objects in a natural scene. Different enhancements of a tourism site are digitally overlaid onto visitors’ direct field of vision in real time. In addition, a voice module can be used to play music and provide additional information. Related algorithms, system design, and simulation results for a prototype ARNature system are presented. Furthermore, a no-reference image quality measure, Naturalness Image Quality Evaluator (NIQE), was utilized to evaluate the immersiveness and naturalness of ARNature. The results demonstrate that ARNature has the ability to enhance tourist experience in a truly immersive manner.

Date Published: 13 May 2019
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 10993, Mobile Multimedia/Image Processing, Security, and Applications 2019, 109930B (13 May 2019); doi: 10.1117/12.2519217

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10993:
Mobile Multimedia/Image Processing, Security, and Applications 2019
Sos S. Agaian; Vijayan K. Asari; Stephen P. DelMarco, Editor(s)