Model-Based Product Configuration in Augmented Reality Applications

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) has recently found high attention in mobile shopping apps such as in domains like furniture or decoration.Here, the developers of the apps focus on the positioning of atomic 3D objects in the physical environment. With this focus, they neglect the configuration of multi-faceted 3D object composition according to the user needs and environmental constraints. To tackle these challenges, we present a model-based approach to support AR-assisted product configuration based on the concept of Dynamic Software Product Lines. Our approach splits products (e.g. table) into parts (eg. tabletop, table legs, funnier) with their 3D objects and additional information (e.g. name, price). The possible products, which can be configured out of these parts, are stored in a feature model. At runtime, this feature model can be used to configure 3D object compositions out of the product parts and adapt to user needs and environmental constraints. The benefits of this approach are demonstrated by a case study of configuring modular kitchens with the help of a prototypical mobile-based implementation.

Designing Guided User Tasks in VR Embodied Experiences

“…For virtual reality training, the FIVE framework [8] includes a relation engine to manage object types and entity relations, and a collaborative interaction engine to manage object interactions. For augmented reality, Gottschalk et al [20] proposed a productuser-environment framework for e-commerce in the interior design and furniture sector, with a specific focus on modelling product features (e.g. textures and components), user models to interact with the product, and product configuration in the environment.…”

“…Our positioning: While many frameworks and ontologies have excellent properties for designing 3D content, they present a number of limitations when considering embodied experiences: (1) reasoning about the user experience within the scene is mostly limited to the geometric properties of 3D objects [9,28] or interaction in a single use case [20], (2) they have a strong focus on the 3D geometry, and those that include interactions are defined at the level of the device and interface (e.g. a mouse, controller, gesture) [2,19,26,29,34] instead of for user tasks (e.g.…”

“…A positioning summarizing limitations in existing work is indicated for ontology and frameworks respectively. System implementations (with source code) were found for [4,9,13,20,29,32].…”

Collaborative Software Modeling in Virtual Reality

“…Augmented Reality (AR) is closely related to VR with the main difference being that VR immerses a user in a completely virtual world while AR does not isolate the user from the real world by displaying virtual objects in the real environment. In general, AR has been already applied for different aspects such as robot programming [37], product configuration (e.g., [38], [39]), planning and measurements [40] or for realizing smart interfaces (e.g., [41], [42]). To be more specific, example approaches that apply AR for software modeling are as follows.…”

Simplifying Robot Programming using Augmented Reality and End-User Development

“…While VR interfaces support the interaction in an immersive computer generated 3D world and have been used in different application domains such as training [30], robotics [31], education [33], or healthcare [28], AR enables the augmentation of real-world physical objects with virtual elements. In previous works, AR has been already applied for different aspects such as prod-uct configuration (e.g., [11], [12]), prototyping [13], planning and measurements [32] or for realizing smart interfaces (e.g., [14], [29]). Besides this broad view of application domains, in recent years, several approaches have addressed the problem of enabling non-programmers to program robots.…”