Date of Award
2023
Document Type
Thesis (Master's)
Department or Program
Computer Science
First Advisor
Lorie Loeb
Second Advisor
James Mahoney
Third Advisor
Alberto Quattrini-Li
Abstract
Augmented reality (AR) renders virtual objects over a real-world physical environment. Currently, the majority of the digital content for AR is created by professional developers with knowledge of AR frameworks such as ARKit and ARCore. User-Generated Content (UGC) is critical for the future of AR, as it will not only increase the number of AR experiences to match the projected rapid growth in the user base, but also democratize content creation. However, there is a current lack of UGC authoring tools for Augmented Reality (AR) to enable users to create, save, and share location-based, markerless AR content. Location-based AR persistently anchors virtual content to a specific real world location, enhancing a user’s engagement with points of interest, such as a cultural site or museum. Markerless AR meanwhile enables complex augmented environments using a collection of tracked features and references. In this paper, we propose a mobile AR system allowing users to create, save, discover, and view location-based, markerless AR content under one interconnected platform. Users can create their own original content consisting of custom imported assets using in-situ creation tools, allowing them to track and augment their immediate surrounding environment. Users may also filter through and view geographically relevant content published by others. Lastly, we introduce a novel navigation system to help users localize to location-based content. A prototype is developed using Unity and ARKit for iOS devices to demonstrate the technical implementation of the framework.
Recommended Citation
Kidman, Brett, "A Platform for in-Situ Creation of Markerless, Location-Based Augmented Reality Content" (2023). Dartmouth College Master’s Theses. 68.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/masters_theses/68