Mixed Reality in Asymmetric Collaborative Environments: A Research Prototype for Virtual City Tours
Feld, N. & Weyers, B.
IEEEVR 2021: 7th AnnualWorkshop on Everyday Virtual Reality (WEVR)
Abstract:
Augmented and virtual reality have the potential to improve various
aspects of everyday life such as tourism. An elementary part of
tourism is the organization and execution of guided city tours. In
case of tours for virtual cities, such as in the case of no longer
existing ancient settlements, a combination of augmented and virtual
reality may render high benefit for collaboration between guide
and visitors. Immersive technology has been shown suitable for
collaborative systems by previous research, as they can provide a
better experience than other technologies. However, recent literature
analyses showed that there is a lack of research regarding the role
of augmented reality supporting the active/leading user role in such
scenarios. Usually, augmented reality is used for the users who
are passively experiencing the virtual environment and not for the
one controlling it. However, we think that augmented reality has a
large potential to improve the workflow of such a primary user. To
investigate this research question, we present a collaborative system
in this work, which implements a virtual city tour. In this system,
the guide is using augmented reality and the visitor is immersed in
the virtual city using virtual reality glasses. To implement a valid
research prototype, the system has been developed in close feedback
with experts in the field of guided city tours.
DOI: 10.1109/VRW52623.2021.00053
