Creating Interactive and Realistic Augmented Reality Experiences

Despite the recent advances in augmented reality (AR) technology most AR applications still fail to provide a seamless integration of the virtual objects in the augmented environment. To help alleviating this situation in this paper we propose an approach for supporting the implementation of interactive and realistic AR experiences, in which virtual objects can be occluded and collide with real ones and, in general, appear as merged into the real setting. The approach combines the use of model-based AR techniques with the advantages of current game engines, and it has been implemented using an existing game platform named GREP. We also present an experience carried out to assess the feasibility of the approach, in which more than 100 people played two AR games implemented following the proposed technique.