NETIVAR: NETwork Information Visualization based on Augmented Reality

Connecting network cables to network switches is a time-consuming and inefficient task, and requires extensive documentation and preparation beforehand to ensure no service faults are encountered by the users. In this paper, a new AR smartphone application that overlays network switch information over the user’s vision is designed and developed for real working environment to increase user’s efficiency in working with a network switch. Specifically, the prototype of the AR App is developed on the Android platform using both the Unity game engine and Vuforia AR library and connecting to the network switch to retrieve network information through telnet. By using the camera on the smartphone for capturing the visual information from the working environment, i.e. the network switch in this App, the network switch information such as speed, types, etc. will be overlaid on each port on the smartphone screen. A user study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the AR App to assist users in performing network tasks. In particular, participants were tasked with connecting switchports to a patch panel to match up corresponding configurations. After three tests, it was found that the times for completion and mistakes made were reduced in the final test when compared to the first. This highlights the positive effects of the application in improving the user’s efficiency.