A survey on applications of augmented, mixed and virtual reality for nature and environment

TL;DR

This survey reviews existing augmented, virtual, and mixed reality applications focused on environmental protection, highlighting their potential and categorizing their contributions to awareness and preservation efforts.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive classification and analysis of AR/VR/MR applications for environmental purposes, identifying gaps and future directions.

Findings

AR/VR/MR applications are increasingly used for environmental awareness.

Most applications contribute to environmental protection and preservation.

The survey identifies promising future research directions.

Abstract

Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) are technologies of great potential due to the engaging and enriching experiences they are capable of providing. Their use is rapidly increasing in diverse fields such as medicine, manufacturing or entertainment. However, the possibilities that AR, VR and MR offer in the area of environmental applications are not yet widely explored. In this paper we present the outcome of a survey meant to discover and classify existing AR/VR/MR applications that can benefit the environment or increase awareness on environmental issues. We performed an exhaustive search over several online publication access platforms and past proceedings of major conferences in the fields of AR/VR/MR. Identified relevant papers were filtered based on novelty, technical soundness, impact and topic relevance, and classified into different categories. Referring to the selected papers, we discuss how the applications of each category are contributing to environmental protection, preservation and sensitization purposes. We further analyse these approaches as well as possible future directions in the scope of existing and upcoming AR/VR/MR enabling technologies.