Abstract-Coloring books capture the imagination of children and provide them with one of their earliest opportunities for creative expression. However, given the proliferation and popularity of digital devices, real-world activities like coloring can seem unexciting, and children become less engaged in them. Augmented reality holds unique potential to impact this situation by providing a bridge between real-world activities and digital enhancements. In this paper, we present an augmented reality coloring book App in which children color characters in a printed coloring book and inspect their work using a mobile device. The drawing is detected and tracked, and the video stream is augmented with an animated 3-D version of the character that is textured according to the child's coloring. This is possible thanks to several novel technical contributions. We present a texturing process that applies the captured texture from a 2-D colored drawing to both the visible and occluded regions of a 3-D character in real time. We develop a deformable surface tracking method designed for colored drawings that uses a new outlier rejection algorithm for real-time tracking and surface deformation recovery. We present a content creation pipeline to efficiently create the 2-D and 3-D content. And, finally, we validate our work with two user studies that examine the quality of our texturing algorithm and the overall App experience.

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Augmented Reality (AR) holds unique and promising potential to bridge between real-world activities and digital experiences, allowing users to engage their imagination and boost their creativity. We propose the concept of Augmented Creativity as employing AR on modern mobile devices to enhance real-world creative activities, support education, and open new interaction possibilities. We present six prototype applications that explore and develop Augmented Creativity in different ways, cultivating creativity through AR interactivity. Our coloring book app bridges coloring and computer-generated animation by allowing children to create their own character design in an AR setting. Our music apps provide a tangible way for children to explore different music styles and instruments in order to arrange their own version of popular songs. In the gaming domain, we show how to transform passive game interaction into active real-world movement that requires coordination and cooperation between players, and how AR can be applied to city-wide gaming concepts. We employ the concept of Augmented Creativity to authoring interactive narratives with an interactive storytelling framework. Finally, we examine how Augmented Creativity can provide a more compelling way to understand complex concepts, such as computer programming.

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