Evaluation for Visualizing Depth Information of Annotations in Augmented Reality Environments

摘要

Augmented Reality(AR) which merges real and virtual environments can overlay virtual annotations relative to the real environment. Such a technology is applied to applications such as a navigation system. Users feel unnatural when an AR environment is presented through 2-D display devices such as a monocular Head Mounted Display (HMD). This is because depth cues are not presented properly and depth information becomes ambiguous. In addition, there are some demands for comprehending depth information of annotations or comparing it with another. In this paper, proposed is a number of methods to display annotations through the use of depth information. First, depth information is classified, then discussed is how to visualize each class of depth information when displaying annotations. Three examples of visualization methods are shown. First, a "frame" is attached to each annotation and its color is changed according to its depth information. Second, to improve visibility of an annotation of interest, overlaying annotations are transparentized. Finally, a line style of the frame is modified when the annotation is behind real objects. The results of the experiment show that proposed methods are effective for presenting depth information of annotations and improving their visibility. However, more intuitive rendering method is needed for visualizing occlusion relationships.