Augmented Environments Lab

Abstract

An ongoing research problem in Augmented Reality (AR) is to improve tracking and display technology in order to minimize registration errors. However, perfect registration is not always necessary for users to understand the intent of an augmentation. This paper describes the results of an experiment to evaluate the effects of graphical context in a Lego block placement task when the graphics are located outside of the task area. Four conditions were compared: fully registered AR; non-registered AR; a heads-up display (HUD) with the graphics always visible in the field of view; and a HUD with the graphics not always visible in the field of view. The results of this experiment indicated that registered AR outperforms both non-registered AR and graphics displayed on a HUD. The results also indicated that non-registered AR does not offer any significant performance advantages over a HUD, but is rated as less intrusive and can keep non-registered graphics from cluttering the task space.

Reference

Cindy Robertson, Blair MacIntyre, and Bruce Walker. “An Evaluation of Graphical Context in Registered AR, Non-Registered AR, and Heads-Up Displays”  In Proceedings of International Symposium on Augmented and Mixed Reality (ISMAR08), Sept 15-18, 2008, Cambridge, England.  pages-73-76.

Members of the lab attended the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality 2008 (ISMAR08) in Cambridge, England.  

Duy Nguyen, a PhD student in the CS program, presented two demonstrations, one a game created by Duy and others in the lab (”Art of Defense”) and the second a project done at Nokia Research.

Cindy Robertson, a former PhD student in the CS program, presented a short paper from her dissertation research, “An Evaluation of Graphical Context in Registered AR, Non-Registered AR, and Heads-Up Displays.”

Blair MacIntyre (along with Mark Billinghurst of HitlabNZ, and Daniel Wagner of Graz University) presented a half-day tutorial on Handheld Augmented Reality.  MacIntyre presented the section on design for handheld AR, with a focus on location-based experiences and games.

Abstract

An ongoing research problem in Augmented Reality (AR) is to improve tracking and display technology in order to minimize registration errors. However, perfect registration is not always necessary for users to understand the intent of an augmentation. This paper describes the results of an experiment to evaluate the effects of registration error in a Lego block placement task and the effectiveness of graphical context at ameliorating these effects. Three types of registration error were compared: no error, fixed error and random error. These three errors were evaluated with no context present and some graphical context present. The results of this experiment indicated that adding graphical context to a scene in which some registration error is present can allow a person to effectively operate in such an environment, in this case completing the Lego block placement task with a reduced number of errors made and in a shorter amount of time.

Reference
Robertson, C. and MacIntyre, B. (2007). An Evaluation of Graphical Context as a Means for Ameliorating the Effects of Registration Error. In Proc. International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, Nara, Japan, November 13-16, pp. 99-110.