Mobile Collaborative Augmented Reality: The Augmented Stroll

Abstract

Abstract. The paper focuses on Augmented Reality systems in which interaction with the real world is augmented by the computer, the task being performed in the real world. We first define what mobile AR systems, collaborative AR systems and finally mobile and collaborative AR systems are. We then present the augmented stroll and its software design as one example of a mobile and collaborative AR system. The augmented stroll is applied to Archaeology in the MAGIC (Mobile Augmented Group Interaction in Context) project.

Mobile and Collaborative Augmented Reality: A Scenario Based Design Approach

“…It represents the archaeological field: site topology, found objects and archaeologists current locations known by the GPS. The graphical user interface is fully described in [20]. The two cases of mixed interaction (cases (1) and (2) in Table 3) imply (i) that physical objects must be manageable in the digital world (case (1)) (ii) that digital objects must be manageable in the physical world (case (2)).…”

Mobile Support for Team-Based Field Surveys

“…While innovative in terms of its interface, the Fieldnote system has no real-time synchronous support for teamwork. Other systems such as Renevier and Nigay's [4] 'MAGIC' system, and RAMSES [5] have similar shortcomings in that they focus on single user data collection and fail to support synchronous collaborative fieldwork.…”

Generic Interaction Techniques for Mobile Collaborative Mixed Systems

“…Links between the physical and digital worlds are therefore dynamic, based on the users' actions and not defined in advance as for example in an augmented museum (the NaviCam system) [10]. Several Collaborative Augmented Reality systems exist and take on a variety of forms: In [11] we introduce a taxonomy of Collaborative Augmented Reality systems based on the classical distinction in groupware, that is the distance between users, as well as the distance between one or several users and the object of the task that belongs to the real world.…”

“…The "augmented field" technique is particularly useful to see objects belonging to a stratum higher than the current one, because by definition the objects have all been removed. The MAGIC system along with its software architecture is fully described in [11]. Although the design is based on task and activity analysis performed in Alexandria (Egypt), we were not able to experimentally test MAGIC on a site there.…”

“…The presented interaction techniques therefore constitute the first bricks of a toolkit for developing mobile collaborative mixed systems. Reusability of the code and independence of part of it with the hardware are guaranteed by the software architecture model that we applied for developing the platform [11].…”