Collaborative manipulation of 3D virtual objects in augmented reality scenarios using mobile devices

Abstract

Interaction in augmented reality environments may be very complex, depending on the degrees of freedom (DOFs) required for the task. In this work we present a 3D user interface for collaborative manipulation of virtual objects in augmented reality (AR) environments. It maps position - acquired with a camera and fiducial markers - and touchscreen input of a handheld device into gestures to select, move, rotate and scale virtual objects. As these transformations require the control of multiple DOFs, collaboration is proposed as a solution to coordinate the modification of each and all the available DOFs. Users are free to decide their own manipulation roles. All virtual elements are displayed directly on the mobile device as an overlay of the camera capture, providing an individual point of view of the AR environment to each user.