3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice

Chapter 12. Beyond Virtual: 3D Interfaces for the Real World

Despite the dramatic developments in the fields of desktop-based and immersive 3D computer-generated environments, we still spend most of our lives in the real world. Augmented reality (AR), a relatively new field of interactive computer graphics, proposes to augment real-world and physical spaces with computer-controlled sensory stimuli, such as images, sounds, and smells. These stimuli create, in a sense, an interactive virtual space embedded into the physical world around us. AR environments differ from pure VEs in that we can have access to both real and virtual objects at the same time, so instead of replacing the real environments around us, we can enhance them with tools and ...