Hello, my name is Jeremy and I’ll be presenting the paper “AAR:
Augmenting a Wearable Augmented Reality Display with an Actuated Head-Mounted Projector.”
This is part of the work I’m doing at the University of Waterloo with Yen-Ting and Dan.
First, lets define what augmented augmented Reality is.
If we consider AR conceptionally as a means to
alter or enhance the user’s physical environment with digital information.
We can think of the implementations to achieve that goal along a continuum,
where we have commercial approaches with waveguide displays (like the hololens),
approaches that use a head-mounted projector with beamsplitters and retro-reflective surfaces,
approaches that use a head-mounted projector that directly augments physical surface,
and finally approaches that use in-situ projectors that are embedded directly within
the physical environment they are augmenting. Each approach has their own advantages and
disadvantages. For example, some render augmentations privately
for only the user using the AR display While the others augment the world directly,
making it public and viewable to any other user co-located in that space.
We take aspects of all these systems and combine them within a unified framework.
This allows to physically augment the environment publicly, with an ad-hoc steerable projector,
while also allowing us to render augmentations privately inside the headset,
Ultimately allowing us to augment augmented reality.
For example: We can project
content directly into the real world, rendering it onto physical surfaces in an ad-hoc SAR setup
or render content directly on the HMD display, blending it with a peripheral projection.
Or have content on the AR display while rendering another perspective of it on a nearby surface.
We developed a concise design space that explores augmented augemented reality along two dimensions:
The Users role, which captures WHO is benefiting from the augmented environment. Which could either
be the HMD user, the external user or both. And the Projector Role, which describes HOW
the actuated projector is used in the environment. Where it could be augmenting the view of the user,
environment, or to simulate an external display. Together they describe multiple different
scenarios where the HMD and projector can be used to assist the users in the space.
To demonstrate the feasibility of AAR, we developed a number of scenarios that
explore our design space. Like augmenting the view of
the user with a graphic user interface outside the field of view of the HMD.
Or to use a nearby table as a way to project a CAD like overlay of a virtual 3D model.
This can be used as a reference or used to study specific details not shown on the model.
Or the projector can be used to augment a physical object for design and prototyping.
Here you can see a cereal design projected onto a generic box located on a nearby table.
Or the projector could be used to highlight physical objects in the environment.
Which can be used to direct users or highlight points of interest
in the environment, like on a museum tour.
Or the projector could be used to enhance the environment lighting of a space,
Like when the user is listening to music
Or the projector could be used as a means to create an ad hoc presentation.
Where the slides are projected onto an adjacent
wall, and presenter notes are displayed privately on the HMD.
To enable all these usage scenarios, a one-time calibration is required to
recover the servo’s positions and axis of rotation along with the location of
the projector’s frustrum relative to the HMD. Together, the calibrated geometric relationships
are used for precise movement control in our software toolkit.
Please see paper for details on how this is accomplished.
The toolkit allows developers to rapidly create AAR experiences by providing high-level
access to features of our AAR framework. This include, movement of the projector,
snapping the projector to locations around the HMD frustum, and blending
between the projector, HMD view, or both. All these and more can be currently
accessed in our corresponding Github repository, link is in the paper.
That's the end of my presentation, please see the paper for more details.
And checkout the toolkit on Github