Design and evaluation of an augmented reality welding helmet

The article describes the development and ergonomic evaluation of an augmented reality (AR) welding helmet. The system provides an augmented user interface with supporting information relevant to the welding process. The experimental studies focused on hand-eye coordination of welders and nonwelders with two prototypes of the augmented reality welding helmet. The first prototype operated at 16 frames per second, whereas the second, improved version had 20 frames per second. In addition, the hand-eye coordination while wearing the welding helmet with video see-through head-mounted display was compared to a performance with natural vision, without any helmet. Experimental results showed significant influence of helmet and occupation on handeye coordination. Subjective assessment revealed better rating for stereo perception for the system with the higher frame rate, whereas no significant difference in performance was found between the two frame rates. (c) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.