Enhancing User Role in Augmented Reality Interactive Simulations

Abstract

Scientific literature reports an increasing interest for the development of applications of augmented reality (AR) in many different fields [1][2][3]. The AR has been used in entertainment [4][5][6][7][8], education [9][10][11][12], medicine [13][14][15], military field [16,17], implant and components maintenance [18,19], robotics [20], engineering [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] and archeology [29,30]. Some recent developments about mobile augmented reality applications have been discussed in Chaps. 6 and 7. The most of all these applications deals with the merging in the real world of objects, scenes and animations which have been modeled and simulated outside the system. It means that the user perceives a real scene augmented with pre-computed objects. For these reasons, his interaction with the augmented scene is often limited to visual and acoustic exploration.In 1999 the International Standard Organization (ISO) provided a definition of an interactive system as: "An interactive system is a combination of hardware and software components that receive input from, and communicate output to, a human user in order to support his or her performance of a task". The recent improvements of both hardware and software performances fuelled the development of innovative methodologies in order to increase of the interaction between the user and the scene [31,32]. The purpose of these enhancements is to change the user role from spectator to actor. The main idea to achieve this objective is to use innovative approaches for going beyond a mere visual or acoustical experience of pre-computed contents, including the capability of real-time modifying and updating the contents of the scene and the two-ways interaction.

Development of virtual reality support to factory layout planning

“…Therefore, it is important to provide interactivity features in the system for better user experience and quality of work result [25,26]. As a result studies about the development of interactive virtual environment has attracted more attention [27].…”

Efficiency and Precise Interaction for Multibody Simulations in Augmented Reality

“…E-mail: valentini@ing.uniroma2.it the visual perception of the world, being supported by additional information and virtual objects. One of the most important feature of AR is the possibility to embed an high level of user's interaction with the augmented scene [9].…”