IEEE VIS 2024 Content: Active Appearance and Spatial Variation Can Improve Visibility in Area Labels for Augmented Reality

Active Appearance and Spatial Variation Can Improve Visibility in Area Labels for Augmented Reality

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Hojung Kwon - Brown University, Providence, United States

 Yuanbo Li - Brown University, Providence, United States

 Xiaohan Ye - Brown University, Providence, United States

 Praccho Muna-McQuay - Brown University, Providence, United States

 Liuren Yin - Duke University, Durham, United States

 James Tompkin - Brown University, Providence, United States

 Room: Bayshore VI

2024-10-16T17:03:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2024-10-16T17:03:00Z

Exemplar figure, described by caption below — Top left: If an AR area label has a similar color to the environment, we cannot easily see the label. Top right: If the label is too opaque, it occludes the environment. Bottom left: We automatically change label colors to increase visibility. Bottom right: We add spatial variation within a label to reduce background occlusion. (Background image source: Dubai360, 8K 360 Degree Timelapse of Dubai Marina)

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Keywords

Augmented reality, active labels, environment-adaptive

Abstract

Augmented reality (AR) area labels can visualize real world regions with arbitrary boundaries and show invisible objects or features. But environment conditions such as lighting and clutter can decrease fixed or passive label visibility, and labels that have high opacity levels can occlude crucial details in the environment. We design and evaluate active AR area label visualization modes to enhance visibility across real-life environments, while still retaining environment details within the label. For this, we define a distant characteristic color from the environment in perceptual CIELAB space, then introduce spatial variations among label pixel colors based on the underlying environment variation. In a user study with 18 participants, we found that our active label visualization modes can be comparable in visibility to a fixed green baseline by Gabbard et al., and can outperform it with added spatial variation in cluttered environments, across varying levels of lighting (e.g., nighttime), and in environments with colors similar to the fixed baseline color.