A system for aiding a user in at least one of welding, cutting, joining, and cladding operations is provided. The system includes a welding tool and a welding helmet with a face-mounted display. The system also includes a spatial tracker configured to track the welding helmet and the welding tool in 3-D space relative to an object to be worked on. A processor based subsystem is configured to generate visual cues based on information from the spatial tracker and transmit the visual cues to a predetermined location on the face-mounted display.