INTERACTION EXPERIENCES IN MOBILE AUGMENTED REALITY

Mobile Augmented Reality (AR) applications allow the user to interact with virtual objects positioned within the real world via a smart phone, tablet or smart glasses. As the popularity of these applications grows, recent researchers have identified several security and privacy issues pertaining to the collection and storage of sensitive data from device sensors. Location-based AR applications typically not only collect user location data, but transmit it to a remote server in order to download nearby virtual content. In this paper we show that the pattern of network traffic generated by this process alone can be used to infer the user's location. We demonstrate a side-channel attack against a widely available Mobile AR application inspired by Website Fingerprinting methods. Through the strategic placement of virtual content and prerecording of the network traffic produced by interacting with this content, we are able to identify the location of a user within the target area with an accuracy of 94%. This finding reveals a previously unexplored vulnerability in the implementation of Mobile AR applications and we offer several recommendations to mitigate this threat.

The flipped classroom model enables students to acquire fundamental knowledge outside of class time; thus, include reading materials or video lectures. This will be able to free up class time for knowledge application, student engagement in active learning, and higher-order thinking. The flipped classroom model is increasingly being adopted in competency-based medical education. However, the potential of flipped classrooms for enhancing medical education has not yet been proven and it poses a major challenge to students who have not mastered self-regulated learning strategies. Thus, they may not be able to understand the information presented in the course materials or to strategically use learning resources outside of class. In this project, we have created a mobile augmented reality (AR) application for students studying anatomy to help them grasp the idea of the AR flipped classroom. Students were instructed to use the same three mobile augmented reality (MAR) applications with different design and approach. The three types of MAR applications are — those with markers and notes on printed notebooks (BARA1), those with markers and notes are on a website (BARA2), and those with all notes in the MAR application and the marker are a tangible 3D object (BARA3). From the series of experiment, we found out that most students favour the BARA3, meanwhile the medical lecturers essentially prefer the BARA1. In this research three things have been considered: interface design, the usefulness of Augmented Reality (AR), technical problems with the use of AR applications, and educators training on the use of AR applications. Without a well-designed interface and guidance for the students, AR technology can be too complicated to use, especially for those who are not familiar with the technology.

The rapid advancement of technology nowadays opens new opportunities for schools and universities worldwide to improve the quality of teaching and learning experience using Augmented Reality can help make classes more interactive and allow learners to focus more on practice instead of just theories. The researcher identified the problem that pedagogy has not been learner-cantered in most approaches in teaching and that teachers need to adapt to the new method of teaching. The goal of the study is to develop an Augmented Reality (AR) mobile application to enhance the pedagogical approach in teaching. This will use a marker-based method for transmitting virtual objects into the realworld. Blippar was used in the development of AR. This resulted in the form of instructional material and technology that can be used in teaching. During the testing of the material Students’ interest was aroused and it even makes them more eager to learn the subject. End-users and experts also deem that the AR mobile application as usable and acceptable with a rating of 78% using the System Usability Scale (SUS). This is an excellent contribution to the educational domain through augmented reality and improving the pedagogical approach in teaching.

This chapter begins by providing an overview of the key issues associated with new media and audience participation. It then moves to a specific case study of mobile technologies and public service media (PSM) through the MyBurb case study. During 2011, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Pool project developed an experiment that sought to combine emerging augmented reality (AR) technology with the archival collection of the ABC. Communication scholars have argued for the significance of one’s representation of space and place through the increasing use of mobile media by providing a unique context to the location. Additionally, the field acknowledges the role of cultural institutions as critical to add context to the ‘mobile media space’ by providing access to their archival content collection. The MyBurb project attempted to alter Australian suburbs by augmenting ABC archives in contemporary suburban environments to explore the blur between physical and digital spaces with its citizens. Mobile media, specifically geo-locative AR applications such as Layar are ‘one of the most widely used mobile AR applications’ (Liao and Humphreys in New Media & Society, Online: 2, 2014) and challenge the sociological implications of hybrid spaces as ‘[m]obile interfaces … allow users to be constantly connected to the Internet whilst walking through urban spaces’ (de Souza e Silva in New Media & Society 13: 261, 2006). The project was successfully implemented, but was rarely utilized by the audience it sought to engage, revealing a division between aspects of the ABC’s remit and engaging its audience through mobile technology and environmental hybridity. This observation supports the cultural production gap Hesmondhalgh (The cultural industries, Sage, London, 2007) identified between the production and consumption of cultural goods, where this chapter argues the cultural production gap could be facilitated through technological intermediation as part of the broader concept of cultural intermediation. This chapter then focuses on how cultural intermediation can facilitate the collaborative production of cultural goods to include the affordances of geo-locative media whilst avoiding the disconnection between the MyBurb project and its stakeholders. Further, this chapter seeks to explore the concept of governmentality as it highlights the tensions that exist between users and facilitators of institutional co-creative spaces, and the governance under which they operate.

The early application of augmented reality (AR) was introduced. And the principle and application of mobile AR technology were discussed. Then the present application of mobile AR in e-learning was also discussed. Finally the existing problem and application prospect of mobile AR technology in e-learning were discussed. Our results indicated that the application of mobile AR technology in e-learning improves the students’ autonomous learning ability and learning interest, which is very important to personnel training.

This study explores the integration of mobile Augmented Reality (AR) applications within the context of the National Museum of Malaysia, focusing on enhancing the educational experience for visitors. The project aims to address the challenge of enhancing museum experiences through innovative technologies. The research problem centers on designing an AR application for the National Museum of Malaysia to enrich the visitor engagement and understanding, as stemmed from the decline in museum visitors, with the National Museum of Malaysia experiencing a staggering 70% drop in income in 2020 and 2021. Utilizing Unity Editor and other libraries, the project developed the National Museum AR App, featuring four distinct AR experiences corresponding to different exhibits within the museum. Methods involve AR content creation, user testing, and data analysis. Overall, findings suggest that the AR application effectively meets visitors' learning needs and enhances the educational value of museum exhibits by providing unique AR features. The significance of the project lies in its potential to transform cultural heritage tourism by bridging the gap between traditional museum experiences and digital engagement. The study also serves as a preliminary investigation to guide the future development and deployment of AR applications within the museum setting.

The chemical reaction between different molecules is an important learning subject in a chemistry course. Especially for elementary school students, this can be an abstract concept and therefore difficult to understand. One way to facilitate this learning process is to use Augmented Reality (AR) technology, which is considered as an added value compared to classical learning materials such as textbooks, 2D images, video, etc. Among the different advantages of using AR technology in the context of educational domain is the fact that 3D technology is offering a safe environment especially if the students have to perform critical tasks such as simulating chemical reactions. This work investigates the students’ attitude towards the use of a mobile AR application for learning atoms and molecules reactions. In particular, we focused on female students as in general female students show less interest in science and technology than male students. We were keen to investigate whether the use of AR technology could change this attitude. The students are able to interact with the different AR components to explore the possible reactions in a 3D interface, to see the structure and shape of atoms and molecules, and to view related descriptions in their native language, i.e. the Arabic language. The mobile AR application was evaluated by a class of 12–13 years old (7th grade) students in a Palestinian primary school. The number of participants was 50, all female students. After analyzing the results, we can conclude that the female students had a positive attitude toward the use of this AR application in their learning process.

Mobile technologies enable individuals to organize and manage their daily li ves through the mobile applications that are use d during the day. A ugmented reality is one of those applications that can be used on mobile devices. Expectations for the use of new technologies in educational environments increase in parallel with the technolog ical advancements. Thanks to advances in computer, internet and mobile technologies, numerous new applications have emerged that facilitate communication and interaction in educational environments. In particular, t he applications of the augmented reality technologies emerging with the advancing technology in the field of education are becoming widespread and easy -to-use. Augmented reality is a technology that enriches the learning process, created by real-time integration of the virtual elements and the real world elements. In geography teaching, different knowledge and skills are expected to be acquired by the learner , therefore augmented reality application s appeal ing to the different senses of learners can be utilized. AR technology can be used in various fields , especially in education. In addition to increasing productivity, mobile augmented reality applications would be used for multiple purposes in the field of education with the interactive facilities they offer to user such as 2D and 3D visual support and video playback.

Good user experiences in Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) applications require timely processing and rendering of virtual objects on user devices. Today's wearable AR devices are limited in computation, storage, and battery lifetime. Edge computing, where edge devices are employed to offload part or all computation tasks, allows an acceleration of computation without incurring excessive network latency. In this paper, we use acyclic data flow graphs to model the computation and data flow in MAR applications and aim to minimize the makespan of processing input frames. Due to task dependencies and variable resource availability, makespan minimization is proven to be NP-hard in general. We design DPA, a polynomial-time heuristic algorithm for this problem. For special data flow graphs including chain or star, the algorithm can provide optimal solutions or solutions with a constant approximation ratio. The effectiveness of DPA has been evaluated using extensive simulations with realistic workloads and resource availability measured from a prototype implementation.

The purpose of the current study is to design and develop a sample Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) application addressing the anatomic structure of the heart in a way suitable for laboratory learning for pre-service science teachers to achieve learning by constructing information in biology instruction. The implementation of the MAR design activity was conducted with the participation of 30 pre-service teachers taking the biology laboratory course. The implementation process of the activity consists of four stages. The first stage includes the introduction of the MAR application program and marker; the second stage includes the use of the MAR application in a laboratory environment; the third stage includes the operation of dissection and the last stage includes the association of the MAR application with the operation of dissection and general evaluation. Then, semi-structured interviews were conducted by involving pre-service teachers and the data obtained from these interviews revealed that integration of heart dissection with MAR application helped the pre-service teachers to better understand the anatomic structure of the heart and the related concepts. Thus, a sample activity demonstrating how MAR, which is an instructional method with strong potential for reification and visualisation, can be integrated into the teaching of concepts in laboratory settings was developed.

Research on the effectiveness of augmented reality (AR) on learning exists, but there is a paucity of empirical work that explores the role that positive emotions play in supporting learning in such settings. To address this gap, this study compared undergraduate students’ emotions and learning outcomes during a guided historical tour using mobile AR applications. Data was collected in a laboratory (Study 1; N = 13) and outdoors (Study 2; N = 18) from thirty-one undergraduate students at a large North American university. Our findings demonstrated that learners were able to effectively and enjoyably learn about historical differences between past and present historical locations by contextualizing their visual representations, and that the two mobile AR apps were effective both in and outside of the laboratory. Learners were virtually situated in the historical location in Study 1 and physically visited the location in Study 2. In comparing results between studies, findings revealed that learners were able to identify more differences outdoors and required less scaffolding to identify differences. Learners reported high levels of enjoyment throughout both studies, but more enjoyment and less boredom in the outdoor study. Eye tracking results from Study 1 indicated that learners frequently compared historical information by switching their gaze between mobile devices and a Smart Board, which virtually situated them at the historical location. Results enhance our understanding of AR applications’ effectiveness in different contexts (virtual and location-based). Design recommendations for mobile AR apps are discussed.

With the development of Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore, mobile augmented reality (AR) applications have become much more popular. For Android devices, ARCore provides basic motion tracking and environmental understanding. However, with current software frameworks it can be difficult to create an AR application from the ground up. Our solution is CalAR, which is a lightweight, open-source software environment to develop AR applications for Android devices, while giving the programmer full control over the phone’s resources. With CalAR, the programmer can create marker-less AR applications which run at 60 frames per second on Android smartphones. These applications can include more complex environment understanding, physical simulation, user interaction with virtual objects, and interaction between virtual objects and objects in the physical environment. With CalAR being based on CalVR, which is our multi-platform virtual reality software engine, it is possible to port CalVR applications to an AR environment on Android phones with minimal effort. We demonstrate this with the example of a spatial visualization application.

Lately, mobile augmented reality (AR) has become very popular and is used for many commercial and product promotional activities. However, in almost all mobile AR applications, the user only views annotated information or the preset motion of the virtual object in an AR environment and is unable to interact with the virtual objects as if he/she were interacting with real objects in the real environment. In this paper, in an attempt to realize enhanced intuitive and realistic object manipulation in the mobile AR environment, we propose an integrated view-input AR interaction method, which integrates user device manipulation and virtual object manipulation. The method enables the user to hold a 3D virtual object by touching the displayed object on the 2D touch screen of a mobile device, and to move and rotate the object by moving and rotating the mobile device while viewing the held object by way of the 2D screen of the mobile device. Based on this concept, we implemented three types of integrated methods, namely the Rod, Center, and Touch methods, and conducted a user study to investigate the baseline performance metrics of the proposed method on an AR object manipulation task. The Rod method achieved the highest success rate (91%). Participants' feedback indicated that this is because the Rod method is the most natural, and evoked a fixed mental model that is conceivable in the real environment. These results indicated that visualizing the manipulation point on the screen and restricting the user's interactivity with virtual objects from the user's position of view based on a conceivable mental model would be able to aid the user to achieve precise manipulation.

With the rapid development of educational tools, co-design has been on the rise. Co-design is instrumental in successful product development as it merges two key perspectives, namely consumers’ insights and professionals’ knowledge. The roles of users, designers, and developers are now blurred as educators have begun to construct their own tools for teaching based on problems and ideas conceived in their classrooms, thereby assuming roles as designers and to some extent, as developers. A more common practice in recent days is educators’ co-designing of tools with system developers to achieve their targeted goal. This study attempted to explore the process of co-designing an augmented reality (AR) mobile application and the role of a system developer in mediating the design process with non-designers, namely academic members of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia. This study further aimed to delineate the nuances of the AR mobile application co-design experience from the perspective of the system developer. Semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analyses were conducted to examine the detailed process of co-designing and developing the AR application as well as to understand the developer’s interaction with the consumers. The main findings of this study suggest that the waterfall model of the Software Development Life Cycle was in use during the co-design process. This cycle generally involves five stages, namely (i) planning, (ii) analysis, (iii) design, (iv) implementation, and (v) maintenance, which are iterative in nature. The designer’s role in mediating the co-design process encompassed balancing their knowledge and experience with the needs of consumers that do not necessarily match the designer’s expectations. This was achieved through (i) precise communication, (ii) commitment to the delivery and quality of the AR mobile application, as well as to building cohesive working relationships, and (iii) motivation to work with co-designers during the development process. The findings shed light on the value of co-design and the complex role of designers in mediating the design process with non-designers, which when accounted for, can lead to more feasible project development.

Remotely operating a robot in Augmented Reality (AR) is a challenging problem due to the limited information about the environment around the robot. The current AR teleoperation interface lacks the collision checking between the virtual robot model and the environment. This work aims to overcome that problem by using depth mesh generation to reconstruct the environment from a single pair of RGB and Depth images. By presenting the generated mesh with the virtual manipulator model in AR, we introduce three collision-aware features, i.e., collision checking, AR guidance, and ray casting distance calculation, to support the operator in the manipulation task. The reconstruction can be done instantly on the smartphone, allowing the system to be used on mobile AR applications. We evaluate our system with the pick-and-place task. The accuracy of the reconstruction is enough for the user to succeed in the operation. In addition, the collision-aware features reduce the task completion time, lower workload, and enhance the system's usability.