Augmented Reality: Principles and Practice

Chapter 6. Visual Coherence

In this chapter, we examine how to obtain visually coherent output from an AR system. Specifically, this chapter investigates how real and virtual objects can be combined so that the virtual objects blend seamlessly into the real environment to the point where they are indistinguishable from the real world. While not all types of AR applications have seamlessness as their ultimate goal, visual coherence is important for areas such as entertainment, education, and commerce. We have already discussed one important component of visual coherence, spatial registration, in Chapter 5. In this chapter, we concentrate on appearance-related issues, mainly relying on techniques from real-time photorealistic computer graphics. ...