Abstract
Augmented reality (AR), the extension of the real physical world with holographic objects provides numerous ways to influence how people perceive and interact with geographic space. Such holographic elements may for example improve orientation, navigation, and the mental representations of space generated through interaction with the environment. As AR hardware is still in an early development stage, scientific investigations of the effects of holographic elements on spatial knowledge and perception are fundamental for the development of user-oriented AR applications. However, accurate and replicable positioning of holograms in real world space, a highly relevant precondition for standardized scientific experiments on spatial cognition, is still an issue to be resolved. In this paper, we specify technical causes for this limitation. Subsequently, we describe the development of a Unity-based AR interface capable of adding, selecting, placing and removing holograms. The capability to quickly reposition holograms compensates for the lack of hologram stability and enables the implementation of AR-based geospatial experiments and applications. To facilitate the implementation of other task-oriented AR interfaces, code examples are provided and commented.
Highlights
Orientation and navigation are fundamental aspects of everyday life
1.1 The Potential of Augmented reality (AR) Techniques for Experiencing. As both the Microsoft HoloLens and the HTC Vive Pro are capable of tracking head movements, they make it possible to create an impression of permanent presence of holographic geospatial objects
In terms of Gartner’s Hype Cycle Approach (Jarvenpaa and Makinen 2008), one could say that AR passed the peak of inflated expectations
Summary
Orientation and navigation are fundamental aspects of everyday life. Estimating distances and angles, recalling and recognizing object locations and memorizing routes or landmarks are just a few examples of many basic tasks in outdoor as well as indoor environments (e.g., Keil et al 2019; Plumert et al 2005; Postma and De Haan 1996). Representing an early development stage, AR visualization techniques can be based on so called mid-air displays, sometimes referred as free-space displays (Dickmann 2013). A famous example of an AR application interacting a lot with space is the gaming app “Pokémon GO” (Zhao and Chen 2017) In this smartphone- or tablet-based game, users interact with audiovisually animated game characters that can be found in the real environment. In this way, the whole logic and process of the game is added like an additional information layer into the physical landscape. The camera recordings can be augmented by artificial elements acting as stereoscopic holograms
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