AiR: An Augmented Reality Application for Visualizing Air Pollution

Abstract

In order to effectively combat Air Pollution, it is necessary for the government and the community to work together. Easily comprehensible visualizations can play a major role in drawing public attention and spreading awareness about seemingly intangible air pollution. Considering the widespread usage of Android-based devices, in this paper, we propose an Augmented Reality based application called AiR, to help users to visualize pollutants in the air and to create an immersive user experience. It aims to interactively engage a wide variety of users and create awareness without overwhelming them with data. AiR visualizes 12 pollutants $[PM _{10}$, $PM _{2.5}$, NO, NO2, $NO _{x}$, CO, SO2, O3, NH3, C6 H6, (CH3)C6 H5 and (CH3)2 C6 H5] through unique models. We demonstrate our application on pollution data by CPCB from various weather stations across India collected over the initial lockdown period due to COVID-19 in India.