Field Force Data Visualization

I have written several articles about augmented reality - - the potential has always seemed huge to me and others.  This potential is not just in the areas of restaurant guides or tourism.  Real potential seems very near in many areas of engineering.

Consider the article in the July 26, 2012 issue of the New York Times by Matthew L. Wald - - In Blackouts, Drones and iPads May Come to Rescue:

"After the powerful storm known as a derecho struck on June 29, East Coast utilities were forced to bring in help from as far away as Ontario and Oklahoma, and had to determine quickly where to put the borrowed crews to work, even before the roads were passable.  Then they had to deliver poles, transformers, wires, crossbars and other parts to the precise locations where they were needed.

A prototype app for the iPad, developed by the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit utility research consortium, is aimed at solving part of the problem.  Here's how it works: The electric company preloads the iPad with data about the equipment in the field.  With GPS, the device knows its location.  A field worker can then point the device at a utility pole and quickly see an "augmented reality" view of the equipment, showing precisely what kind of pole, crossbar, transformer and wire are present, and how the system is wired.

The technician selects the image of the parts that need replacement, and "click, click it goes back to the loading dock," where workers begin loading trucks with what is needed for that spot, said Clark Gellings, a senior researcher at the institute.

It even has a Star Wars name: Field Force Data Visualization.  The Field Force, though, refers to the workers, and not to the subliminal energy field sensed by the Jedi."