Depending upon their nature, Outdoor AR applications can be deployed on head mounted displays (HMD) like Google glass or handheld Displays (HHD) like smartphones. This master’s thesis investigates novel gesture-based interaction techniques and applications for a HMD-HHD hybrid system that account for advantages presented by each platform. Prior research in HMD-HHD hybrid systems and gestures used in VR and surface computing were taken into account while designing the applications and interaction techniques. A prototype system combining a HMD and HHD was developed and four applications were created for the system. For evaluating the gestures, an application that compared four of the proposed gestures for selection tasks was developed. The results showed a significant difference between the different gestures and that the choice of gesture for selection tasks using a hybrid system depended upon application requirements like speed and accuracy.

Virtual environment (VE) design for cognitive rehabilitation necessitates a new methodology to ensure the validity of the resulting rehabilitation assessment. We propose that benchmarking the VE system technology utilizing a user-centered approach should precede the VE construction. Further, user performance baselines should be measured throughout testing as a control for adaptive effects that may confound the metrics chosen to evaluate the rehabilitation treatment. To support these claims we present data obtained from two modules of a user-centered head-mounted display (HMD) assessment battery, specifically resolution visual acuity and stereoacuity. Resolution visual acuity and stereoacuity assessments provide information about the image quality achieved by an HMD based upon its unique system parameters. When applying a user-centered approach, we were able to quantify limitations in the VE system components (e.g., low microdisplay resolution) and separately point to user characteristics (e.g., changes in dark focus) that may introduce error in the evaluation of VE based rehabilitation protocols. Based on these results, we provide guidelines for calibrating and benchmarking HMDs. In addition, we discuss potential extensions of the assessment to address higher level usability issues. We intend to test the proposed framework within the Human Experience Modeler (HEM), a testbed created at the University of Central Florida to evaluate technologies that may enhance cognitive rehabilitation effectiveness. Preliminary results of a feasibility pilot study conducted with a memory impaired participant showed that the HEM provides the control and repeatability needed to conduct such technology comparisons. Further, the HEM affords the opportunity to integrate new brain imaging technologies (i.e., functional Near Infrared Imaging) to evaluate brain plasticity associated with VE based cognitive rehabilitation.

The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate currently commercially available head mounted virtual reality displays for potential use in pilot training simulators. For this purpose acommercial simulator was modified to display the virtual environment in an Oculus RiftDK2 headset. A typical monitor based setup was used to provide a set of hardware requirements which the VR implementation had to meet or exceed to be considered potentially usable for pilot training simulators. User tests were then performed with a group of users representative of those normally using pilot training simulators, including both pilots and engineers working with simulator development. The main focus of the user tests was to evaluate some potential weaknesses found in the technical comparison (such as when a measured parameter was close to the lower limit defined by the monitor based setup) and to make a measurement of the usability of the VR implementation. The results from the technical comparison showed that the technical requirements were met and in most cases also exceeded. There were however some potential weaknesses revealed during the user tests, which included screen resolution and the field of view. There was one main critical deficiency found during the user tests. This was the lack of interaction with the aircraft as users were only able to interact with the flight stick and throttle lever. While this enabled the users to control many aspects of the aircraft (by using buttons and other controls fitted on the flight stick/throttle) in a training scenario a user also has to be able to interact with other switches and/or monitors in the cockpit. This was however a known limitation of the implementation and thus didn’t affect the tested parts of the simulator. The user tests also confirmed that the resolution was a potential problem, but that the overall usability was high. Thus the VR implementation had potential for use in a pilot training simulator, if the critical issues found during the user tests were solved.

As wearable computers become more ubiquitous in society and work environments, there are concerns that their use could be negatively impactful in some settings. Previous research indicates that mobile phone and wearable computer use can impair walking and driving performance, but as these technologies are adopted into hazardous work environments it is less clear what the impact will be. The current research investigated the effects that head mounted display use has on high angle climbing, a task representative of the extreme physical demands of some hazardous occupations (such as firefighting or search and rescue work). We explored the effect that introducing a secondary word reading and later recall task has on both climbing performance (holds per meter climbed and distance covered), and word reading and recall (dual-task effects). We found a decrease in both climbing performance and word recall under dual task conditions. Further, we examined participant climbing motion around word presentation and non-word presentation times during the climbing traverse. We found that participants slowed around word presentations, relative to periods without word presentation. Finally, we compared our results to those found in previous research using similar dual-tasking paradigms. These comparisons indicated that physical tasks may be more detrimental to word recall than seated tasks, and that visual stimuli might hinder climbing performance more than audible stimuli. This research has important theoretical implications for the dual-tasking paradigm, as well at important practical implications for emergency response operations and other hazardous working environments.

Head mounted projection display (HMPD) technology, as an alternative to conventional head mounted displays (HMD), offers a potential of designing wide field-of-view (FOV), low distortion optical see-through HMDs (OST-HMDs). Existing HMPD designs, however, suffer from problems of low luminance and low image resolution, which limits the applications of such information displays for the scenarios which require high luminance and high image fidelity. The design of a polarized head mounted projection display (p-HMPD) was recently proposed to overcome the challenge of low luminous efficiency in existing HMPD designs. Polarization management was employed to reduce the light loss caused by beamsplitting in an HMPD.The work in this dissertation focuses on the development and evaluation of an SXGA resolution, high efficiency p-HMPD system. The main contributions are as follows. First, the key elements in the polarization management scheme of a p-HMPD were selected and their polarization performances were characterized by measuring their Mueller matrices, based on which the overall display performance of a p-HMPD was analyzed.Second, based on a pair of ferroelectric liquid-crystal-on-silicon (FLCoS) microdisplays, a compact illumination unit and a light-weight projection system were designed, from which a p-HMPD prototype was built. Following the prototype implementation, a series of calibrations were performed to obtain correct color presentation, desired focusing setting, and optical system characteristics necessary for achieving accurate registration between virtual objects and their counterparts in the real world.Third, the imaging properties of a retroreflective screen which is an essential part of a p-HMPD or HMPD were studied and its effects on the image resolution of an HMPD system were further characterized.Finally, the performance of the system was evaluated through two objective user experiments, including a visual acuity assessment and a depth perception accuracy assessment.

Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) are increasingly used to support mobile work (Laramee & Ware, 2002). Human operators sometimes require additional auditory support when using an HMD, which raises the question of whether sound is better delivered publicly in free-field or privately via earpiece. A novel experimental procedure was created in which participants had to identify mismatches between auditory information and visual information on an HMD. Different conditions of sound delivery and physical movement were manipulated within-subjects. Participants heard the sound either via earpiece or free-field while they either sat or moved about the test room. Predictions were based on the idea that inconsistent spatial mapping of vision and sound would compromise mismatch detection. First, I predicted a main effect of movement such that participants‟ mismatch detection would be worse when they moved than when they sat. Second, I predicted an interaction between movement and sound delivery. When participants are seated there will be no difference in mismatch detection between the two methods of sound delivery. When participants are walking, however, mismatch detection will be better with an earpiece than with free-field delivery. Results supported the first prediction. For the second prediction, the significant interaction found took a different form than predicted. With the earpiece, participants performed equally well whether sitting or walking, but with free-field sound, participants performed better when sitting than when walking. Results have implications for understanding necessary auditory conditions for effective crossmodal integration and may indicate a cause for concern for people who use HMDs and auditory displays in safety-critical environments.

Developing head-mounted displays (HMD) that offer uncompromised optical pathways to both digital and physical worlds without encumbrance and discomfort confronts many grand challenges, both from technological perspectives and human factors. Among the many challenges, minimizing visual discomfort is one of the key obstacles. One of the key contributing factors to visual discomfort is the lack of the ability to render proper focus cues in HMDs to stimulate natural eye accommodation responses, which leads to the well-known accommodation-convergence cue discrepancy problem. In this paper, I will provide a summary on the various optical methods approaches toward enabling focus cues in HMDs for both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

It is widely considered that in-store shopping is a repetitive yet vital activity in human life. People are accustomed to making shopping lists on a piece of paper or on their mobile phones, or more commonly, memorizing the list in their minds. However, people tend to forget the items they want to buy if they cannot write them down immediately when they have the shopping demand, let alone keeping the list in their minds. Some work has started to help people resolve this problem, yet most of them are based on smartphones and are focused on riching add-on functions of the shopping list applications instead of allowing real-time recording. Namely, these existing shopping-list systems cannot let people record items and satisfy their information needs while minimizing the intervention to their ongoing activities. In this study, a new Augmented Reality (AR) solution named AR Shopping List was proposed. It is a smart-glasses application that allows users to add items at any time and place and with arbitrary input formats (photos, videos, and voice to text). We conducted semi-structured interviews with twelve participants aged from 20 to 30 by letting them experience the AR Shopping List app themselves on Microsoft HoloLens (1st gen). Our interviews reveal that the AR Shopping List realizes real-time recording, and therefore releases people’s hands from touching a physical device when making a list. It also shows the app’s potential in helping people reduce the opportunity of forgetting something to buy, as well as shopping more targeted. Furthermore, this research sheds light on future designs on smart-glasses applications for assisting people in recording and remembering items, building a new memorizing habit, and further functioning as people’s working memory expansion. / Trots att det är repetitivt att handla i butik så anses det allmänt vara en vital del av vardagen. Det är vanligt förekommande att inköpslistor skrivs ner på ett paper eller på en mobiltelefon, men även att memorera inköpslistor är vanligt förekommande. Att memorera en inköpslista är dock svårt, och det är ofta viktigt att skriva ner varor som behöver införskaffas, så fort behovet att köpa varorna uppstår. Några metoder har tagits fram för att lösa detta problem, men de flesta av dessa metoder är till för att användas på mobiltelefoner och fokuserar främst på att lägga till funktioner för att skapa avancerade inköpslistor, istället för att tillåta skapandet av listor i realtid. Framförallt så kan de existerande systemen för att skapa inköpslistor inte registrera varor och tillfredsställa användarens andra behov, utan att användarens pågående aktiviteter påverkas. I denna studie presenteras en ny lösning kallad AR Shopping List baserad på Augmented Reality (AR). Det är en applikation för smarta glasögon som tillåter användare att lägga till varor när som helst och var som helst, med godtyckligt format (bilder, videor och text genererad med rösten). Vi genomförde semistrukturerade intervjuer där tolv deltagare i åldrarna 20 till 30 år, fick prova på att använda AR Shopping List applikationen på en Microsoft HoloLens (första generationen). Våra intervjuer visar att AR Shopping List kan skapa inköpslistor i realtid, utan att användarna behöver använda en fysisk enhet. De visar även potentialen som applikationen har för att minska antalet tillfällen där varor som behöver köpas in glöms bort, samt potentialen för mer riktade inköp. Dessutom belyser denna rapport designen för framtida applikationer till smarta glasögon för att underlätta skapandet av inköpslistor, bygga upp nya minnesvanor, och för att utöka det aktiva minnet.

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In der Produktentwicklung nimmt die Bedeutung von Head-Mounted-Displays (HMD) stetig zu. Mit HMDs ist es möglich, virtuelle Objekte zu betrachten und mit diesen in realem oder virtuellen Kontext zu interagieren. Die Entwicklung von HMDs im Entertainment-Bereich und die nativen Augmented-Reality(AR)-Funktionen von Smartphones und Tablets (Apple Inc. 2019, Google Inc. 2019) machen AR- und Virtual-Reality(VR)-Anwendungen einer breiten Nutzerbasis zugänglich. Die individuelle Entwicklung dieser Anwendungen ist mit heutigen Software-Werkzeugen umfangreich möglich. Im Bereich der Produktentwicklung und Schulung werden die Geräte ebenfalls genutzt, bedürfen jedoch intensiver Erforschung und Anpassung an individuelle Bedürfnisse. Besondere Anforderungen kommen auf AR- und VR-Systeme zu, wenn Nutzende kollaborieren möchten. Anders als im Entertainment-Bereich spielen hier die Genauigkeit der Sensorik, eine konsistente Wahrnehmung aller Teilnehmenden und Möglichkeiten zur Vermittlung von Ideen und Anmerkungen eine tragende Rolle. Als Werkzeug für einen solchen Gedankenaustausch werden neben verbaler Kommunikation und Textverkehr meist Annotationen genutzt. Bedingt durch gerätespezifische Eingabemethoden müssen Annotationssysteme und Annotationen in AR und VR anders gestaltet werden als in klassischen Desktopanwendungen. In einem Review erzeugte Annotationen beinhalten wichtige Informationen, die in den Entwicklungsprozess integriert werden müssen. Dementsprechend bedarf es einer Möglichkeit, Annotationen auch nach dem Review verwenden zu können. Diese verschiedenen Aspekte der Kollaboration sollen im Folgenden näher untersucht werden, um wichtige Erkenntnisse für den Einsatz von HMDs als Basis einer kollaborativen Umgebung zu vermitteln. [... aus der Einleitung]