Implementation of Immersive Multi-View Augmented Reality System
Abstract
An immersive virtual reality display device such as an HMD (Head Mounted Display) provides virtual experiences by blocking external visual information and providing a computer generated virtual world. On the other hand, the augmented reality system does not present a complete virtual world as the immersive virtual reality system does, but it can further enhance the effect of reality by combining virtual objects in a specific space of the real world that the user sees. In this paper, we propose an immersive multi-view augmented reality system that can add advantages of immersive virtual reality system to augmented reality system. In our proposed system, in addition to the visual information of the camera attached to the HMD for the immersive environment, the visual information of the HMD camera was extended by showing the visual information captured by a mobile device in the same augmented reality space.
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Introduction
With the recent popularization of smart mobile devices, digital contents of various genres can be conveniently used anywhere through wireless Internet. Especially, the spread of augmented reality and virtual reality service using smartphone and HMD is rapidly increasing. It can be said that augmented reality and virtual reality, which were only seen in movies and novels a few years ago, are becoming increasingly part of our lives.
Virtual reality refers to a specific environment or artifact or technique itself created by artificial technology using a computer. A see-through HMD system, designed by Ivan Sutherland in the 1960s, is the first virtual reality system [1]. In the early days, the virtual reality system was not easy to succeed in actual and utilization because of the construction cost and lack of hardware and software technology. In recent years, however, with the development of remarkable hardware and software technologies, inexpensive commercialized products are beginning to be introduced. Commercial HMD technology allows users to experience environments or situations that could not be experienced in the real world. Examples include naval parachute training [4], rehabilitation therapy [5], and education [6]. However, because the virtual reality system is a 100% computer generated environment, it is not easy to apply it to applications based on objects that we can directly see and feel in the real world.
On the other hand, Augmented Reality (AR), a technique derived from one field of virtual reality technology, cannot give users experience such as a 100% virtual environment or situation, but it can further increase the effect of reality by combining a virtual object with a specific space of the real world that the user sees. Thanks to these advantages, the augmented reality system can be applied to various fields such as personal information system [7], navigation [8], tourism [9], design [10], and medical treatment [11]. In recent years, augmented reality applications can run on mobile devices such as smart phones. On the other hand, an augmented reality system that can directly interact with a virtual object while viewing the real world has a disadvantage in that it can only show the real world ahead of users.
Conclusion
In this study, we implemented a multi-view augmented reality system using a mobile device. The proposed system provides a method to extend the user’s view by adding a remote augmented image to existing immersive video see-through type augmented reality system. In addition, we implemented hand gesture based interfaces for switching between the four views modes.
The proposed system can be applied to a robot, an RC car or any network capable devices, and it is also possible to connect multiple devices at the same time. This enables augmented reality-based tasks without going directly to physically separated (or dangerous) areas, and can be applied to areas where multi-user collaboration is required.