Capturing on site laser annotations with smartphones to document construction work

In the process of construction work, taking notes of real world objects like walls, pipes, cables and others is an important task. The ad hoc capturing of small information pieces on such objects on site can be challenging when there is no specialized technology available. Handwritten or hand drawn notes on paper are good for textual information like measurements whereas images are better to capture the physical state of objects. Without a proper combination however the benefit is limited. In this paper we present an interaction system for taking ad hoc notes on real world objects by using a combination of a smartphone and a laserpointer as input device. Our interface enables the user to directly annotate objects by drawing on them and to store these annotations for later reviewing. The deictic gestures of the user are then replayed on a stitched image of the scene. The users voice input is captured and analyzed to integrate additional Information. The user can mark positions and place hand taken measurements by pointing on the objects and speaking the corresponding voice commands.