The 3DI Group would like to congratulate Yuan Li for completing his dissertation defense on April 13, 2022. His work, entitled “Assisting Spatial Referencing for Collaborative Augmented Reality” focused on “[supporting] adequate spatial referencing when model information from the environment [was] missing”.
The abstract of his dissertation follows:
People often exchange spatial information about objects when they work together. Example phrases include: “put that there”, or “pick the third object from left”. On the other hand, Augmented Reality (AR) is the technology that displays 3D information into the real world to enhance or augment reality. Scientists and technology practitioners think that AR can help people collaborate in a better way. The AR system needs to have a good understanding of the physical environment to support exchanging spatial information in the first place. However, limited by current technology, acquiring spatial information from the real world is not always possible or reliable. In this dissertation, we first illustrate the severity of insufficient environmental knowledge when collaborators sit next to each other in AR. Then we present pointing ray techniques to help AR collaborators refer to distant objects without knowing where those objects are. We further explore different marking techniques that can help the AR system calculate the position of a point in space without scanning the area. Last, we provide an AR application that supports efficient spatial information communication in remote discussion around physical objects.
We wish Yuan well, as he begins his career at Apple.