Solution

The solution comes basically from the situation the companies have to face today: work with digital systems, but having their workers taking information from the digital world to the physical to be able to work efficiently with the benefits of this media.

The paper is the base to take information with us and make annotations that at some point have to be converted to a digital language.

So if we work with efficiency at both worlds at the same time, keeping the benefits of paper and the required characteristics of the digital environment, than this is where we can save time and money; and let the workers do their job in the same way they used to do previously.

SCENARIO 1 - Present

Available technology

Digital pen and paper to keep our traditional way of working, but now in the digital world at the same time. Information can be transmitted in real time with the use of digital paper forms. The pen can identify where in the paper it is and the system can associate the place and identity of the document to an specific piece of information.

Digital paper. With this kind of digital paper we can create documents fully recognizable by a computer system. We can tell the system that a group of dots mean the address box in a form. Every information captured by the pen in that area will be stored under the address information of that specific document.

Our technology basket has now the pen and paper. But until now our users can't see information, just input.

SCENARIO 2 - Near future

Available technology with small development within the next 5 years

The 32 shades of red will be one of constrains to our system. First, because it is the available technology, second is that a colourful augmented reality systems brings up several other problems that we weren't able to address at the time of the project.

HOW THE SYSTEM WOULD WORK IN THIS SCENARIO

The GUIs are all in shades of red as explained above.

It has square corners and very geometric forms in general to keep it the most different from the background possible.

As you can see Patrick works as he would without the system, but now he has update information in front of him in real time and all his paper work is at the same time transferred to the system, saving the time, money and annoyance of having to do it all again in the end of the day.

Now the users can input and access information from the system in real time. The system can located the user and give him context sensitive information based on the his position and which kind and part of the document in being used.

SCENARIO 3 - Future

In 10/15 years the precise tracking is incorporated into the system

Today is possible to track objects, but in the future it will possible to track with high precision, enough to track paper, not just recognize it. In this environment everything is trackable, objects and documents, and, of course, findable.

The ability to track and recognize areas in a document, make it possible to overlay digital information into sheets of digital paper bringing features like search into real documents and the possibility to see digital annotation on them.

This would be the warehouse for the future truck driver. The hidden information available is now fully accessible.

SCENARIO 4 - Far future

20 years

In the Far Future it is impossible to determine whether the document is digital or physical once you are wearing the augmented reality goggles, that now are light and with all the technology needed embedded.

Visit also the Galeria section and find full size pictures, where you can see the details missed in these small pictures in this section.

The Flash presentation will soon be available.

For more information check the paper Integrating Paper Documents into Digital Systems.

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