device independence

Abstract: Augmented reality (AR) technologies are rapidly expanding into new application areas. However, the development of AR user interfaces and appropriate interaction techniques remains a complex and time-consuming task. Starting from scratch is more common than building upon existing solutions. Furthermore, adaptation is difficult, often resulting in poor quality and limited flexibility with regard to user requirements. In order to overcome these problems, we introduce an infrastructure for supporting the development of specific AR interaction techniques and their adaptation to individual user needs. Our approach is threefold: a flexible AR framework providing independence from particular input devices and rendering platforms, an interaction prototyping mechanism allowing for fast prototyping of new interaction techniques, and a high-level user interface description, extending user interface descriptions into the domain of AR. The general usability and applicability of the approach is demonstrated by means of three example AR projects.

 user interfaces;  interaction techniques;  virtual reality;  collaborative computing;  distributed systems;  distributed applications;  multimedia information systems;  artificial;  augmented;  and virtual realities;  graphics systems;  distributed/network graphics;  methodology and techniques;  device independence;  graphics data structures and data types;  three-dimensional graphics and realism;