Architecture and Architectural Patterns for Mobile Augmented Reality

Abstract

A software architecture codifies the design choices of software developers, which defines a modularorganizational spine for the design of a software artefact. Different architectures may bespecified for different types of artefacts, a real-time interactive artefact, for example, wouldhave markedly different requirements to those of a batch based transactional system. The use ofsoftware architecture becomes increasingly important as the complexity ofartefacts increases. Augmented Reality blends the real world observed through a computerinterface, with a computer generated virtual world. With the advent ofpowerful mobile devices, Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR)applications have become increasingly feasible, however the increased power hasled to increased complexity. Most MAR research has been directed towardstechnologies and not design resulting in a dearth of architecture and design literature for MAR. This research is targeted at addressing this void. The main requirement that a MAR architecture must meet isidentified as being the efficient real-time processing of data streams such asvideo frames and sensor data. A set of highly parallelised architecturalpatterns are documented within the context of MAR that meet thisrequirement. The contribution of this research is a software architecture, codifiedas architectural patterns, for MAR.