Low-Overhead 3D Items Drawing Engine for Communicating Situated Knowledge

摘要

This paper presents a low-overhead 3D items drawing engine for a situated knowledge medium aiming at improving the knowledge communication between experts and end-users of scientific instruments. The knowledge representation is based on the concept of Spatial Knowledge Quantum that associates a 3D geometry structure with knowledge. Our engine attempts to provide an effective means for creating those 3D structures. It consists of a hand-held Augmented Reality (AR) system and allows to directly draw, in the context of a subject instruments, free 3D lines. A line is recorded as a set of sample points. From these points a volume can optionally be interpolated by performing a Delaunay tetrahedralization. During the drawing operations, a physically concrete version of the instrument is not required. The AR interface shows the real-world combined, not only with the created 3D items, but also with a virtual representation of the instrument. A virtualized instrument offers many advantages such as availability, mobility, scalability, spatial freedom (e.g., we can draw through it) and rendering options.