RespondAR is a mobile application designed for use with small Unmanned Aircraft Systems.  The app blends aircraft telemetry data with live video frames to produce an augmented reality (“AR”) scene in which AR overlays are displayed on the live video feed.  These overlays represent various positional data-points including Road/Street Names, Points of Interest, Landmarks and the like.  

RespondAR is currently compatible with all modern DJI platforms including the Inspire lineup, Phantom lineup (Phantom 3 and Newer), Mavic lineup and Spark.    

RespondAR is currently supported on iOS and will soon be supported on Android (July 2018).  

RespondAR uses industry leading Augmented Reality (“AR”) software and is powered by Rapid Imaging’s proprietary SmartCam3D® product.  SmartCam3D® provides situational awareness to soldiers and is currently deployed in all US Army unmanned systems, embedded within the Universal Ground Control Stations used to fly the Shadow and Gray Eagle platforms.  A 2005 study by the Air Force Research Laboratory found that SmartCam3D® enhanced situational awareness of pilots and improved target acquisition time by 100%.   

MISB 0601 STD is a video format required by the Department of Defense for all airborne imagery.  This standard blends UAV telemetry data with video data-packets to produce a combined stream of georeferenced video.  The technology powering RespondAR, SmartCam3D®, was originally designed for NASA and is embedded within all US Army Unmanned Systems.  SmartCam3D® utilizes MISB video from the Shadow and Gray Eagle platforms.  When implemented into RespondAR, SmartCam3D® creates the MISB stream by combining the geospatial metadata from the aircraft with the video frames coming from the camera.  This is important because it provides a geographic context to the live video stream and provides enhanced situational awareness to Pilots In Command, Sensor Operators, Incident Commanders and remote video observers.  

Rapid Imaging is currently available on the FirstNet (AT&T) Store as well as the App Store.  In July 2018 we hope to have the application on the Playstore as well.

The difference between MISB Record and MISB Stream is that MISB recording allows a user to record their video feed with the augmented reality features within the video.  MISB streaming on the other hand allows the user to stream the live feed (with augmented reality overlays) to one of multiple live-streaming services (e.g. AT&T FirstNet, Facebook, YouTube).  

Geographic Information System Augmented Reality Overlays or GIS AR Overlays are map icons and linework that are superimposed on a live video feed.  Unlike traditional augmented reality that you’d see in most AR apps on the App Store or Playstore, Rapid Imaging’s AR Overlays have a geographic context and can be associated with latitudinal and longitudinal geocoordinates in the real-world.  This is because we utilize MISB georeferenced video, meaning we can translate geocoordinates to optical screen coordinates.  This allows RepsondAR to lock an AR Tag to a specific location in a video feed (i.e. Optical Screen Coordinate) based on that Point of Interest’s real-world geocoordinate location.  

KML POI support allows users to upload their own KML files with designated Points of Interest.  This is useful to users who would like to populate their video view with Points of Interest that they feel are important but that may not be included within the Global GIS database we utilize within RespondAR.  As an example, maybe an open area a safe distance away from an incident scene is designated as the Reunification Point.  This is an example of a Point of Interest that would be relevant to include within the video but that may not be present in the Global GIS database which focuses on specific POIs like road names, hospitals, golf courses and other common POIs you’d be use to seeing in Google Earth.  This is a powerful feature for a First Response Team because it enhances situational awareness. 

“LOD” stands for Level of Detail and relates to the amount of GIS information provided within a specific view.  There are multiple levels of detail available when calling a GIS server.  Lower levels of details may show major highway names while higher levels of detail will include major highways but also all road and street names and Point of Interest icons representing various POIs including hospitals, parks, golf courses, etc. within the same video view.  Depending on the application, different levels of details may be required by a user with some preferring all the information available while others like a less cluttered view.