Abstract
Urban planners and designers often use grayscale masking filters to highlight a selected urban feature and its context without the overwhelming information. With the rising interest in applying augmented reality (AR) technology into the field of urban planning for increasing social engagement, this thesis aims to develop an outdoor mobile AR application that visualizes the urban environment using the mentioned grayscale masking filters. The application is able to apply the grayscale masking filter to the designated buildings in Nordbahnhof, Stuttgart when the device’s camera is pointing to them. State of the art of outdoor mobile AR technologies are studied and reviewed. This thesis proposes the concepts and methodology of the video-based AR visualization and the development of the app. The implementation of the concepts and methodology is documented and the implementation process and result are evaluated.
The AR Application
The application developed for the thesis is able to visualize a series of desingated buildings in Nordbahnhof, Stuttgart with the grayscale masking filter. With the app on, once the user points the camera to the designated building, the system will in-real-time detects the building and render the surrounding in monochrome and leaving the building in color. The moving image below demonstrates the visualization from a screen recording when using the app.
Codes and assets used for the development of this application can be found here.