3D bare-hand interactions enabling ubiquitous interactions with smart objects

Abstract

AbstractUbiquitous augmented reality (UAR) implementation can benefit smart shop floor operations significantly. UAR from a user’s first-person view can support and provide the user with suitable and comprehensive information without him/her being distracted from ongoing tasks. A natural hand-based interaction interface, namely, a mobile bare-hand interface (MBHI), is proposed to assist a user in exploring and navigating a large amount of information for a task in the user’s first-person view. The integration of a smart shop floor and UAR-based MBHI is particularly challenging. A real shop floor environment is composed of challenging conditions for the implementation of UAR, e.g., messy backgrounds and significant changes in illumination conditions. Meanwhile, the MBHI is required to provide precise and quick responses to minimize the difficulty of a user’s task. In this study, a wearable UAR system integrated with an MBHI is proposed to augment the shop floor environment with smart information. A case study is implemented to demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed UAR and MBHI system.