Road Stakeout In Wearable Outdoor Augmented Reality

摘要

This thesis advances wearable outdoor augmented reality (WOAR) researchby proposing novel visualisations, by consolidating previous work, and throughseveral formal user studies. Wearable outdoor augmented reality combines augmentedreality (AR) and wearable computing to enable novel applications. ARallows the user to perceive virtual objects as part of their real environment. Usingwearable computers as a platform for AR allows users to see the real and thevirtual world combined in a mobile environment. This combination enables newand exciting applications that bring with them new challenges for interface andusability research.The research described in this thesis advances the field of WOAR researchby developing a WOAR version of a commercial road stakeout application. Thiscase study makes possible the first formal direct comparison of the performanceof a WOAR application and its conventional counterpart. Road stakeout is theprocess of locating points in the real world and marking them with stakes. Thisprocess is not only relevant for road construction, but also to construction andsurveying in general. AWOAR stakeout application can visualise stakeout targetson their location in the real world, while conventional stakeout systems can onlyguide users to these locations using indirect displays. The formal comparisonfound significant differences in performance, and showed that the WOAR systemperformed twice as fast at the same accuracy level as the conventional system. Thestudy also identified a number of usability issues and technical problems relatedto WOAR systems that still need to be overcome.The thesis examines usability problems of the WOAR road stakeout applicationin detail, proposes solutions, and compares their efficiency in formal userstudies. The basic stakeout tasks are navigating to a target location and then placinga stakeout pole on that location. Original research in the fields of directionalinterfaces and depth cues determined solutions for efficient navigation and poleplacement in the WOAR stakeout application.Further, the presented work includes explorative implementations of obscuredinformation visualisations. The thesis proposes interaction with artificially transparentstakeout poles and hands, and examines their feasibility with respect toperceptual and technical issues. A visualisation of a road model investigated thepreservation of context while automatically providing detail when needed.The thesis presents working WOAR implementations of navigation and depthcue support, a road model visualisation, and an artificially transparent stakeoutpole.In conclusion, the thesis consolidated WOAR interface research and extendedthe field with empirical research. The presented research is the first that allows aWOAR application to compete directly with a commercial conventional system,demonstrating the strong potential that WOAR systems already have.