Research Topics

Situated visualization for augmented reality

Summary: When consuming information using augmented reality, the user’s perception is necessarily affected by the situated nature of the presentation, which is – per definition – related to the real environment. This form of visualization is frequently called situated visualization, and it is different from visualization on conventional (desktop) displays since it must try to strike a compromise between virtual and real elements in the user’s field of view. Two very important topics that we have investigated in this context are: first, the placement of virtual labels and other overlays in the user’s field of view such that clutter and undesired occlusions are minimized, and, second, X-ray visualization revealing occluded information by simulated transparency effects on occluding real objects.

Selected publications

Markus Tatzgern, Valeria Orso, Denis Kalkofen, Giulio Jacucci, Luciano Gamberini, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Adaptive Information Density for Augmented Reality Displays. In Proc. IEEE Virtual Reality, March 2016.

Jacob Madsen, Markus Tatzgern, Denis Kalkofen, Dieter Schmalstieg, and Claus Madsen. Temporal Coherence Strategies for Augmented Reality Labeling. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proc.

Raphael Grasset, Markus Tatzgern, Tobias Langlotz, Denis Kalkofen, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Image-Driven View Management for Augmented Reality Browsers. In Proc. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) 2012, pages 177-186, Atlanta GA, USA, November 2012.

Eduardo Veas, Erick Mendez, Steven Feiner, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Directing Attention and Influencing Memory with Visual Saliency Modulation. In Proc. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'11), Vancouver, Canada, May 2011.

Denis Kalkofen, Markus Tatzgern, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Explosion Diagrams in Augmented Reality. In Proc. IEEE Virtual Reality, pages 71-78, Lafayette LA, USA, March 2009.

Denis Kalkofen, Erick Mendez, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Comprehensible Visualization for Augmented Reality. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 15(2):193-204, 2009.

Gerhard Schall, Erick Mendez, Ernst Kruijff, Eduardo Veas, Sebastian Junghanns, Bernhard Reitinger, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Handheld Augmented Reality for Underground Infrastructure Visualization. Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 13(4):281-291, May 2008.

Denis Kalkofen, Erick Mendez, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Interactive Focus and Context Visualization in Augmented Reality. In Proc. 6th IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR'07), pages 191-200, Nara, Japan, October 2007. Best student paper award.

Photometric registration for augmented reality rendering

Summary: In application areas such as entertainment or immersive shopping, the capability to graphically render mixed reality scenes such that the virtual elements are indistinguishable from the real world is highly desirable. Such a consistent rendering is only possible if the photometric properties of the real world are known. In particular, we need information on the incident lighting and the material properties of the objects in the scene. This is challenging, as both are, in general, not known. Objects can move and light sources can change. We have worked on methods to recover photometric properties and compute approximate global illumination robustly, in real time and from a minimum of observations.

Selected publications

David Mandl, Kwang Moo Yi, Peter Mohr, Peter Roth, Pascal Fua, Vincent Lepetit, Dieter Schmalstieg, and Denis Kalkofen. Learning Lightprobes for Mixed Reality Illumination. In Proc. International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), Nantes, France, October 2017.

Thomas Richter-Trummer, Jinwoo Park, Denis Kalkofen, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Instant Mixed Reality Lighting from Casual Scanning. In Proc. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR'16), Merida, Mexico, September 2016.

Lukas Gruber, Thomas Richter-Trummer, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Real-time Photometric Registration from Arbitrary Geometry. In Proc. IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) 2012, Atlanta GA, USA, November 2012.

Authoring for augmented reality

Summary: Once mature platform become widespread, augmented reality will be perceived as a new type of medium, alongside movies, TV, mobile games and so on. While content creation for entertainment benefits from an economy of scale (a particular movie or games can amortize large production costs by reaching a large audience), content creation for professional applications, such as navigation or repair instructions requires a larger degree of automation to be feasible. Dr. Schmalstieg and his team have investigated approaches that enable and author to leverage existing data sources, such as CAD, product databases, or even printed manuals and Youtube videos, in the creation of augmented reality content.

Selected publications

Peter Mohr, David Mandl, Markus Tatzgern, Eduardo Veas, Dieter Schmalstieg, and Denis Kalkofen. Retargeting Video Tutorials Showing Tools With Surface Contact to Augmented Reality. In Proc. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Denver, CO, USA, May 2017.

Peter Mohr, Bernhard Kerbl, Denis Kalkofen, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Retargeting Technical Documentation to Augmented Reality. In Proc. ACM Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI'15), Seoul, South Korea, April 2015.

Bernhard Kerbl, Denis Kalkofen, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Interactive Disassembly Planning of Complex Objects. Computer Graphics Forum(Proc. EUROGRAPHICS 2015), April 2015.

Tobias Langlotz, Daniel Wagner, Alessandro Mulloni, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Online Creation of Panoramic Augmented Reality Annotations on Mobile Phones. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 11(2):56-63, April 2012.

Erick Mendez, Gerhard Schall, Sven Havemann, Sebastian Junghanns, Dieter Fellner, and Dieter Schmalstieg. Generating Semantic 3D Models of Underground Infrastructure. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 28(3):48-57, May 2008.

Dieter Schmalstieg and Daniel Wagner. Experiences with Handheld Augmented Reality. In Proc. 6th IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR'07), pages 3-18, Nara, Japan, October 2007.

Dieter Schmalstieg, Gerhard Reitmayr, Gerhard Schall, Joseph Newman, Daniel Wagner, Florian Ledermann, and Istvan Barakonyi. Managing Complex Augmented Reality Models. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 27(4):48-57, 2007. 2006.

Florian Ledermann and Dieter Schmalstieg. APRIL - A High Level Framework for Creating Augmented Reality Presentations. In Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality 2005, pages 187-194, Bonn, Germany, March 2005.

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