Don’t Bother Me: How to Handle Content-Irrelevant Objects in Handheld Augmented Reality

PubDate: November 2020

Teams: Korea University；Pusan National University；Digital Experience Laboratory Korea University； Korea Institute of Science and Technology

Writers: Hanseob Kim；TaeHyung Kim；Myungho Lee；Gerard-jounghyun Kim；Jane In Hwang

PDF: Don’t Bother Me: How to Handle Content-Irrelevant Objects in Handheld Augmented Reality

Abstract

In this paper, we applied the concept of diminished reality to remove content-irrelevant pedestrian (i.e., real object) in the context of handheld augmented reality (AR). We prepared three view conditions: in Transparent (TP) condition, we removed the pedestrian entirely; in Semi-transparent (STP) condition, the pedestrian became semi-transparent; lastly, in Default (DF) condition, the pedestrian appeared as is. We conducted a user study to compare the effects of the three conditions on users’ engagement and perception of a virtual pet in the AR content. Our findings revealed that users felt less distracted to the AR content in TP and STP conditions, compared to the DF condition. Furthermore, users felt the virtual pet as more life-like, its behavior more plausible, and felt a higher spatial presence in the real environment, in the TP condition.