Understanding the design space of referencing in collaborative augmented reality environments

Abstract

For collaborative environments to be successful, it is critical that participants have the ability to generate effective references. Given the heterogeneity of the objects and the myriad of possible scenarios for collaborative augmented reality environments, generating meaningful references within them can be difficult. Participants in co-located physical spaces benefit from non-verbal communication, such as eye gaze, pointing and body movement; however, when geographically separated, this form of communication must be synthesized using computer-mediated techniques. We have conducted an exploratory study using a collaborative building task of constructing both physical and virtual models to better understand inter-referential awarenessor the ability for one participant to refer to a set of objects, and for that reference to be understood. Our contributions are not necessarily in presenting novel techniques, but in narrowing the design space for referencing in collaborative augmented reality. This study suggests collaborative reference preferences are heavily dependent on the context of the workspace.

See-through techniques for referential awareness in collaborative virtual reality

“…In computer-mediated collaboration multiple people may even share exactly the same viewpoint. In the context of remote collaboration this approach has been shown to be beneficial as occlusion issues are prevented and referential ambiguity can be minimized (Chastine et al, 2007;Kraut et al, 1996).…”

“…In fact, earlier research on remote assistance systems suggests the contrary. Chastine et al (2007) reported that users appreciate the advantages of sharing virtually the same viewpoint even if this involves their view being partially occluded by a semi-transparent avatar representation. Obviously, an avatar does not provide the same level of copresence as a real person.…”

“…As mentioned earlier, referential awareness in remote collaboration can be improved when all participants share one virtual viewing position (Chastine et al, 2007;Kraut et al, 1996). While this is a sensible approach for training and remote guidance, it would largely limit the benefits of collaboration in the realm of visual analysis: different viewpoints and individual navigation through the data.…”

Remote Hands-On Experience: Distributed Collaboration with Augmented Reality

“…A different technique that resembles the approach taken in our studies is to share only virtual aspects while maintaining independent physical halfworlds for each participant, resulting in a rather virtual experience with directness of augmented reality interaction. Among others, Chastine et al [9] used this approach in their studies and highlight the problem of referencing in AR collaboration.…”

“…Based on a pedagogically driven reference scenario of a learning unit, we have implemented a simple prototypical AR application for using AR in schools and evaluated it in a field test under classroom-similar conditions. While summative evaluations [3] found a high acceptance rate among students and teachers and confirmed the pedagogical effectiveness of the prototype AR application, the formative evaluation resulted in a number of recommendations informing future development: sharing viewpoints could simplify referencing problems in communication (see also [9]), video-conferencing features could avoid uncertainties related to remote presence and traditional HumanComputer Interaction features such as Undo could improve ease of use. Overall however, the formative evaluation found that the prototype is well suited for hands-on remote collaboration, and that minor implementation issues are more than compensated for by students' resilience and motivation to complete their collaborative tasks in the shared AR space.…”