Towards Massively Multi-User Augmented Reality on Handheld Devices

By Thomas Pintaric, Florian Ledermann, Dieter Schmalstieg, and Daniel Wagner

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) can naturally complement mobile computing on wearable devices by providing an intuitive interface to a three-dimensional information space embedded within physical reality. Unfortunately, current wearable AR systems are relatively complex, expensive, fragile and heavy, rendering them unfit for large-scale deployment including untrained users outside constrained laboratory environments. Consequently, the scale of collaborative multi-user experiments have not yet exceeded a handful of participants. In this paper, we present a system architecture for interactive, infrastructure-independent multi-user AR applications running on off-the-shelf handheld devices. We implemented a four-user interactive game installation as an evaluation setup to encourage playful engagement of participants in a cooperative task. Over the course of five weeks, more than five thousand visitors from a wide range of professional and socio-demographic backgrounds interacted with our system at four different locations.

Reference

T. Pintaric, F. Ledermann, D. Schmalstieg, D. Wagner: "Towards Massively Multi-User Augmented Reality on Handheld Devices"; Talk: 3rd International Conference on Pervasive Computing, München, DE; 05-08-2005 - 05-13-2005; in: "Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Pervasive Computing (PERVASIVE 2005)", Lecture Notes in Computer Science / Springer, Volume 3468 (2005), ISBN: 3-540-26008-0; 208 - 219.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{TUW-139804,     author = {Pintaric, Thomas and Ledermann, Florian and Schmalstieg, Dieter and Wagner, Daniel},     title = {Towards Massively Multi-User Augmented Reality on Handheld Devices},     booktitle = {Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Pervasive Computing (PERVASIVE 2005)},     year = {2005},     pages = {208--219},     publisher = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science / Springer},     address = {Volume 3468},     url = {http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/media/documents/publications/wagner05_pervasive.pdf},     isbn = {3-540-26008-0},     note = {talk: 3rd International Conference on Pervasive Computing, M{\"u}nchen, DE; 2005-05-08 -- 2005-05-13} } Click into the text area and press Ctrl+A/Ctrl+C or ⌘+A/⌘+C to copy the BibTeX into your clipboard… or download the BibTeX.