Mixed Reality on Mobile Devices

Abstract

The evolution of mobile-computing, location sensing and wireless networking has created a new class of computing: context-aware computing. Mobile computing devices such as PDAs have access to information processing and communication capabilities but do not necessarily have any awareness of the context in which they operate. Context-aware computing describes the special capability of an information infrastructure to recognize and react to the real-world context. Context here could mean many things, e.g. current physical location, weather conditions etc. The most critical aspects of context are location and identity. Location-aware computing systems respond to user’s location, either spontaneously (e.g. warning of nearby hazard) or when activated by user request. Immense potential of this area is already envisaged by the mobile manufactures as many of them have started providing GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers in their mobile devices enabling them location aware too. One such context-aware technology is mobile mixed reality (MMR). As mentioned, the most important aspect of MMR system is to identify the location and orientation of the user to retrieve the context so as to present him/her with context-aware information thereby enhancing the general awareness of the surrounding. This chapter focuses on different approaches for user-localization to trigger MMR based application. The chapter outlines system architecture, enabling technologies and challenges to make the MMR ubiquitous. Particularly, we are interested in the role of computer vision which can make this imaginative area a reality. This section outlines general definitions and requirements of MMR. Applications (Section 2), System Architecture (3), Challenges (Section 4), Tracking and registration (Section 5) are described in subsequent sections.