Data Collection in AR: Exploring Thermal Perception in Public Spaces using Augmented Reality

Addressing the repercussions of climate change requires innovative strategies for sustainable urban development. Existing urban areas often lack comprehensive approaches to climate change mitigation, leading to urban energy imbalance and increased urban heat risks. Critical challenges in the pursuit of global sustainability are raising environmental awareness and promoting public engagement. To address these challenges, augmented reality (AR)-based situated visualizations are emerging as powerful tools for embedding environmental data and related narratives directly within the urban spaces, objects, and communities they concern. Such solutions help bridge the gap between abstract information and lived experience, thus empowering people to take action on climate change on a local level. This master's thesis starts with a review of current practices in designing and developing situated visualizations in AR for environmental awareness and public engagement. Following, it surveys representative applications across environmental monitoring, education, and citizen science, highlighting design frameworks and engagement techniques. Furthermore, it analyzes technical and human-centered challenges, from real-time context awareness and usability to overcoming communication barriers and ensuring inclusivity. Ethical considerations, including privacy, data transparency, accessibility, and prevention of misinformation, are critically addressed.This is followed by future directions for enhancing both the effectiveness and social responsibility of AR-based situated visualizations, offering recommendations to guide the development of participatory and equitable systems that promote informed environmental action.Building upon this, this master's thesis proposes a mobile-based AR prototype for data collection of geospatial subjective thermal perceptions. The AR system will enable users to collect perceived thermal data inside the actual urban environment it refers to, enhancing user engagement and understanding the parameters that influence thermal comfort. Using Unity, the AR application will facilitate location-specific data collection, involving non-experts in the process. The methodology also leverages environmental sensors and a user study in a sample urban domain in Vienna to evaluate the system’s effectiveness.By integrating AR tools with urban climate research, this project aims to improve in situ data collection (here, weather and thermal comfort data) and foster community participation in climate action. It offers a novel approach to engage users in understanding and addressing urban climate challenges.