When it comes to planning a journey from A to B we have no shortage of GPS devices to assist. But sometimes I don’t want to plan a journey, I just want a very simple visual view of what is around me without searching though pages of POIs on my GPS.
 
MapLense is the result of research from the Helsiniki Institute for Information Technology HITT and could create a new field in augmented reality, Augmented Mapping. The demo below shows a user holding up a smartphone over a map and being presented with local POIs and then getting more information, eg finding out more about local tourist attractions. But I see the potential here for all maps in the future to be dynamic. Imaging taking out a paper map and viewing it with a smartphone and seeing live traffic reports for each of roads overlaid on the map or visual indications where the roadworks are located.

Map Lense 2.0
 

 
HIIT home page. www.hiit.fi
  
MapLense was built by Helsiniki Institute for Information Technology HITT, University of Oulu, Graz University of Technology,  so its a product that has come out of university research and probably not going to be publicly available. The also give thanks to Nokia, HITLabsNZ, University of Otago, Imagination Computer Services GesmbH.

The 2 names that stand out, Nokia obviously, and HITLabsNZ who have an excellent record on producing cutting edge augmented reality solutions. Whatever happens I’m sure we’ll see more on augmented mapping in the future.

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