A Mixed Presence Collaborative Mixed Reality System

Research has shown that Mixed Presence Groupware (MPG) systems are a valuable collaboration tool. However research into MPG systems is limited to a handful of tabletop and Virtual Reality (VR) systems with no exploration of Head-Mounted Display (HMD) based Augmented Reality (AR) solutions. We present a new system with two local users and one remote user using HMD based AR interfaces. Our system provides tools allowing users to layout a room with the help of a remote user. The remote user has access to a marker and pointer tools to assist in directing the local users. Feedback collected from several groups of users showed that our system is easy to learn but could have increased accuracy and consistency.

1 Introduction

This poster explores Mixed Presence collaboration using Mixed Reality (MR) technology [3]. MR technology has been researched as a tool for enhancing communication, such as enabling an expert to see live video of a remote collaborator's real workspace and give instructions through verbal communication and graphical cues overlaid onto the real world [5].