Mixed Reality Interfaces - LevelHead and MagicBook

When designing mixed reality interfaces, the designer has to think about three elements; the physical components, virtual components and the interface metaphors.

Case Study One: LevelHead

An example case study I picked out from Mark's lecture was the "LevelHead" project. The Physical components were real blocks. The Display Element was a virtual person and rooms, inside the box. Almost like it was a maze. The Interaction Metaphor of the project was that blocks are rooms.

The top left panel shows just an ordinary box, in the eyes of users. When the box is shown in front of the camera - it activates the Virtual experience in the box. Showing different rooms with each side of the box as well as a virtual man - controlled by the user through tilting of the box. Tilting the box will make the character walk to wherever they want them to go - almost like a maze puzzle. The whole idea of this box puzzle is to guide people around in different rooms, through tilting the box.

The virtual design also has and additional feature, with two boxes stuck together in front of the web cam, you can make the character move from one box to another.

With the whole purpose of trying to guide the character to the end and make his way out of the rooms. Like a maze.

Case Study Two: MagicBook

This project was tested out by Mark himself, along with a collaborator of his. The project was to show an AR/VR collaborative experience through the stories in the book. Here, the user can see a scene they are interested in, and can "fly" into the book and experience the story. Users are free to move and look about the immersive virtual environment at will through the VR experience.

The user is zipped into the virtual world in which the scene takes place in from the book. Firstly, he sees the augmented reality interface of the scene in the book. When the user goes to press on it - the AR experience interacts to it and makes the user go into the scene in a VR experience. So now the user is inside the scene world of the Japanese story.

An interesting fact about this project is that, both the collaborators experience the scene in VR and AR. The metaphor of this project is to experience the story as if you were in the story itself - so to make it more consistent - the VR user can look up into the sky to see his collaborator in the AR view looking down at him, because they are both in the same environment together.

Another feature of this project allows both users to join the scene in VR experience.

The collaborations in MagicBook includes the multiple levels of collaborations, like both using the book physical object. The AR Object that pops out of the book through the goggles, as well as the immersive virtual space when users are sucked into it.

Also the egocentric and exocentric collaborations, like what we learnt about the two collaborators who were testing out the MagicBook project. One was able to interact with the other, despite having different realities in play - VR and AR.

And lastly, the Independent views.

Technology used was a handheld display, a camera on top of it, a switch - which interacts and allows the user to zoom into the AR scene into a VR experience. A compass to aid the camera view in a sense of direction.

In summary, we learnt the importance of the three aspects to remember when designing Mixed Reality interfaces. Think about Physical and Virtual components, as well as Interface metaphors.

#MixedRealities #DES241