ViewR: Architectural-Scale Multi-User Mixed Reality With Mobile Head-Mounted Displays

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Architecture

Background:

• Mobile head-mounted displays with inside-out tracking and video-passthrough enable new mixed reality (MR) applications.
• Architectural spaces can be transformed into immersive, multi-user visualization arenas.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce ViewR, an open-source framework for creating and deploying architectural-scale, multi-user MR experiences.
• To explore the potential of MR in transforming large architectural structures into immersive environments.

Main Methods:

• Developed ViewR framework with tools for real/virtual world alignment, tracking recovery, user visualization, and world state synchronization.
• Implemented features for controlling real/virtual blending, defining blending zones, and using video-passthrough avatars for direct user interaction.
• Tested ViewR in various architectural locations, focusing on interactions with architectural features like stairs and elevators.

Main Results:

• ViewR facilitates the rapid construction and deployment of multi-user MR experiences.
• The framework supports seamless integration of real and virtual elements, including user avatars.
• Experiences created with ViewR offer capabilities beyond those of pure virtual reality.

Conclusions:

• ViewR enables novel architectural-scale multi-user MR experiences.
• Contemporary consumer head-mounted displays can support large-scale multi-user MR with effective tracking error recovery strategies.
• MR offers unique advantages over VR for visualizing and interacting within architectural spaces.