Beyond Visible Light: User and Societal Impacts of Egocentric Multispectral Vision

Erickson, A.; Kim, K.; Bruder, G.; Welch, G. F.

Multi-spectral imagery is becoming popular for a wide range of application fields from agriculture to healthcare, mainly stemming from advances in consumer sensor and display technologies.Modern augmented reality (AR) head-mounted displays already combine a multitude of sensors and are well-suited for integration with additional sensors, such as cameras capturing information from different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. In this paper, we describe a novel multi-spectral vision prototype based on the Microsoft HoloLens 1, which we extended with two thermal infrared (IR) cameras and two ultraviolet (UV) cameras. We performed an exploratory experiment, in which participants wore the prototype for an extended period of time and assessed its potential to augment our daily activities. Our report covers a discussion of qualitative insights on personal and societal uses of such novel multi-spectral vision systems, including their applicability for use during the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.