Herding Sheep: Live System Development for Distributed Augmented Reality

In the past, architectures of Augmented Reality systemshave been widely different and taylored to specific tasks. Inthis paper, we use the example of the SHEEP game to showhow the structural flexibility of DWARF, our component-basedDistributed Wearable Augmented Reality Framework,facilitates a rapid prototyping and online developmentprocess for building, debugging and altering a complex,distributed, highly interactive AR system.The SHEEP system was designed to test and demonstratethe potential of tangible user interfaces which dynamicallyvisualize, manipulate and control complex operations ofmany inter-dependent processes. SHEEP allows the usersmore freedom of action and forms of interaction and collaboration,following the tool metaphor that bundles softwarewith hardware in units that are easily understandable to theuser. We describe how we developed SHEEP, showing thecombined evolution of framework and application, as wellas the progress from rapid prototype to final demonstrationsystem. The dynamic aspects of DWARF facilitated testingand allowed us to rapidly evaluate new technologies.SHEEP has been shown successfully at various occasions.We describe our experiences with these demos.

[1]  Christian Sandor,et al.  SHEEP: The Shared Environment Entertainment Pasture , 2002 .

[2]  Martin Bauer,et al.  Fata Morgana - a presentation system for product design , 2002, Proceedings. International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality.

[3]  Kent L. Beck,et al.  Extreme programming explained - embrace change , 1990 .

[4]  Gudrun Klinker.  An environment for telecollaborative data exploration , 1993, Proceedings Visualization '93.

[5]  Bruce H. Thomas,et al.  ARQuake: an outdoor/indoor augmented reality first person application , 2000, Digest of Papers. Fourth International Symposium on Wearable Computers.

[6]  Kent Beck,et al.  Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (2nd Edition) , 2004 .

[7]  Holger Regenbrecht,et al.  Interaction in a collaborative augmented reality environment , 2002, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[8]  Hideyuki Tamura,et al.  MR Platform: a basic body on which mixed reality applications are built , 2002, Proceedings. International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality.

[9]  Bruce H. Thomas,et al.  Tinmith-evo5 - an architecture for supporting mobile augmented reality environments , 2001, Proceedings IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Augmented Reality.

[10]  Dieter Schmalstieg,et al.  Bridging multiple user interface dimensions with augmented reality , 2000, Proceedings IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Augmented Reality (ISAR 2000).

[11]  Dieter Schmalstieg,et al.  OpenTracker-an open software architecture for reconfigurable tracking based on XML , 2001, Proceedings IEEE Virtual Reality 2001.

[12]  Dieter Schmalstieg,et al.  The Studierstube Augmented Reality Project , 2002, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[13]  Dag Svanæs,et al.  In search of metaphors for tangible user intefaces , 2000, DARE '00.

[14]  Bernd Brügge,et al.  An architecture concept for ubiquitous computing aware wearable computers , 2002, Proceedings 22nd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops.

[15]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  The Application of Petri Nets to Workflow Management , 1998, J. Circuits Syst. Comput..

[16]  Steven K. Feiner,et al.  Exploratory programming of distributed augmented environments , 1999 .

[17]  Dieter Schmalstieg,et al.  Mobile collaborative augmented reality , 2001, Proceedings IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Augmented Reality.

[18]  Craig W. Reynolds.  Flocks, herds, and schools: a distributed behavioral model , 1987, SIGGRAPH.

[19]  Ralf Dörner,et al.  Authoring mixed reality - a component and framework-based approach , 2002, IWEC.

[20]  Bernd Brügge,et al.  Design of a component-based augmented reality framework , 2001, Proceedings IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Augmented Reality.

[21]  Gudrun Klinker,et al.  The Intelligent Welding Gun: Augmented Reality for Experimental Vehicle Construction , 2004 .

[22]  Doug A. Bowman,et al.  Design and evaluation of menu systems for immersive virtual environments , 2001, Proceedings IEEE Virtual Reality 2001.