Augmenting Security Systems - The Role of Augmented Reality in the Surveillance Industry

Abstract: As the focus of Augmented Reality (AR) shifts from consumer entertainment to industry appliances, there is a big need for exploratory studies to figure out what role they will play in the years to come. This thesis aims to investigate how AR could be used to enhance the selling, planning and installation of a security system. A prototype was developed to demonstrate some of the potential benefits of AR in the context. Finally, a user test was conducted on 24 people. The test evaluated both general usability and specific interaction models. Two versions were compared. The results suggested that our AR application was easy to use even for very inexperienced users. It also showed that even though users said they preferred to handle placement of objects themselves, the version in which objects followed the users peripheral vision performed better in all the tests.