Industrial process tomography (IPT) is a specialized imaging technique widely used in industrial scenarios for process supervision and control. Today, augmented/mixed reality (AR/MR) is increasingly being adopted in many industrial occasions, even though there is still an obvious gap when it comes to IPT. To bridge this gap, we propose the first systematic AR approach using optical see-through (OST) head mounted displays (HMDs) with comparative evaluation for domain users towards IPT visualization analysis. The proof-of-concept was demonstrated by a within-subject user study (n=20) with counterbalancing design. Both qualitative and quantitative measurements were investigated. The results showed that our AR approach outperformed conventional settings for IPT data visualization analysis in bringing higher understandability, reduced task completion time, lower error rates for domain tasks, increased usability with enhanced user experience, and a better recommendation level. We summarize the findings and suggest future research directions for benefiting IPT users with AR/MR.

翻译：工业过程层析成像（IPT）是一种在工业场景中广泛用于过程监控与控制的专业成像技术。当前，增强现实/混合现实（AR/MR）正日益应用于众多工业领域，尽管在IPT领域仍存在明显空白。为填补这一空白，我们首次提出基于光学透视（OST）头戴显示器（HMDs）的系统性AR方法，并针对领域用户的IPT可视化分析开展了对比评估研究。通过被试内设计（n=20）的平衡实验验证了概念可行性。研究采用定性与定量双重测量维度，结果表明：相较于传统方案，我们的AR方法在IPT数据可视化分析中展现出更优的可理解性、缩短的任务完成时间、更低的领域任务错误率、更高的可用性与用户体验增强度，以及更强的推荐水平。我们总结了研究发现，并建议了未来通过AR/MR赋能IPT用户的研究方向。