I regularly use Google Maps and Google Earth in my preparation for a site visit. Its sometimes the only real details I have of a workplace before I arrive, particularly when it is on a large site. Street View compliments that at the ground level.
I was intrigued to see that Google is now starting to digitise monuments in Iraq with the Google Art Project.
“The National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad hosts a staggering wealth of artifacts from the earliest human settlements. Now you can explore this museum and its 6,000 year-old treasures even if you can’t make the trip to Baghdad. When you see an exhibit you like, take a closer look with 360-degree views ofindividual antiquities. Read more on the Google Lat Longblog or if this has whet your appetite for more, you can visit other museums with the Google Art Project.”
Wouldn’t it be great to preview a workplace quickly before visiting. It would save a lot of time and even allow a crude virtual walk though survey anywhere in the world.
The technology already exists to do this in real time using a person wearing a camera to telemeter images and sounds to a person sitting in an office, with the office professional directing the person on the ground where to go and point. Well done, it could be 90% of the solution and much quicker. Video overlay is a fairly well established tool in occupational hygiene to allow the presentation of monitoring instrument data on to of the video and as a data stream. The real limitations are communications bandwidth and latency.
I developed a six channel Video Exposure Monitoring (VEM) system that would also telemeter physiological measurements for heat stress, when I was doing work with people wearing protective clothing on high voltage power lines in summer. A lot of fun occupational hygiene toys are just around the corner.
